What is likely the world's costliest artwork, a sensuous, 1907 portrait by Gustav Klimt of a Viennese woman in a gold gown, was unveiled Wednesday by the proud new owner, cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder.

"It's our 'Mona Lisa,'" Lauder said at a press preview, underlining "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" as a destination piece in his collection of modernist Austrian-German art at the Neue Galerie museum on Fifth Avenue.

"I'm so happy the picture is here for everyone to see," said Maria Altmann, 90, who traveled from Los Angeles to attend the preview. She and her family battled the Austrian government for years to regain ownership of the portrait and four other valuable Klimts stolen by the Nazis in 1938.

Lauder, a one-time U.S. ambassador to Austria, wouldn't confirm whether he'd paid Bloch-Bauer's niece and the other heirs a record $135 million for the portrait last month, as first reported by The New York Times. But he acknowledged that the price exceeded the listed world art record of $104.2 million paid at auction for Picasso's 1905 "Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)."

Known as "Golden Adele" for the glowing decorative motifs in her floor-length gown, swirling backdrop and flecked wall behind, the 55-inch-by-55-inch painting is one Klimt's most acclaimed works.

In the hothouse atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Vienna, Klimt won fame as the portraitist of the upper class, especially women. At the time of his death in 1918, he was Austria's leading modern artist.

Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, an Austrian Jewish industrialist, commissioned two Klimt oils of his slender, dark-haired wife. The artist and beautiful Adele were rumored to have had an affair during the years when she sat for the portraits, but this has never been documented.

Altmann, who was raised in Vienna, said her own mother reacted with outrage when asked about the rumors, describing the relationship between the artist and his model as purely "intellectual." Altmann said her aunt also denied in letters seen by a family friend that she'd had an affair with Klimt and noted that he suffered from syphilis.

When Adele Bloch-Bauer died in 1925, her will stated that the golden portrait should go to Austria for public display. But at his death in 1945, her husband willed his property, including the confiscated paintings, to Altmann and other family members.

Based on Adele Bloch-Bauer's will, the Austrian government kept her portrait on display at the Galerie Belvedere in Vienna for decades. In 1999, the Bloch-Bauer heirs began legal proceedings to reclaim the five paintings. The paintings were eventually recognized as stolen property by the U.S. Supreme Court and an Austrian court. The works were handed over to the family early this year.

Lauder said Austrian authorities were positive about his purchase of the golden portrait because it will be seen by a wide public, including foreign visitors, at the Neue Galerie, which Lauder co-founded in 2001.

The second oil portrait, "Adele Bloch-Bauer II," from 1912, in more traditional, vivid colors, and three boldly hued Austrian landscapes from 1903, 1912 and 1916 are also being shown in a marble-trimmed room at the former Vanderbilt mansion-turned museum.

The five pictures will be on display at Neue Galerie until Sept. 18, and will not travel beyond New York. They made their U.S. premiere in April at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Together, the four other pictures in the ensemble could be worth as much as the portrait purchased by Lauder.

Scott Gutterman, deputy director of the Neue Galerie, declined to say whether plans are afoot to buy any of the paintings to hang permanently with Adele's portrait. "I don't know if the family has decided what to do with them," he said.

___

On the Net:

Neue Galerie, New York: http://www.neugalerie.org

Recommend (0)

|  Comments (0)

|  Email

|  Share

Share  Facebook Digg del.icio.us