Klimt’s canvas for $ 44 million will have to be returned to its rightful owner Automatic translate

The Austrian museum should return the precious canvas of Gustav Klimt to the heir to the rightful owner, after they examined it found that the painting was confiscated by the Nazis during the Second World War.

This photo, without date, provided by the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art, depicts a painting by the famous Austrian artist Gustav Klimt “Litzlberg am Attersee”. Officials claim that Klimt’s painting, which is now in the Austrian museum, was selected by the Nazis and, for this reason, must be returned to its previous owner. Now the painting is in the possession of the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art (MdM Salzburg) and is estimated at 30 million euros (44 million dollars).

Various experts were tasked to track the origin of the work. Scientists’ studies showed that the Nazis seized the cloth, which is now 96 years old, from a house in a village near Vienna, from a woman named Amalia Redlich, after she was deported to Poland in October 1941, where she was killed - said For reporters, Salzburg Deputy Governor Wilfried Haslauer and Museum Head, Toni Stooss.

The picture was acquired by a collector and art dealer Friedrich Weltz, who exchanged it in 1944 for a masterpiece from the Salzburg State Gallery. Then, in 1952, she transferred to the small museum that became the heir to the gallery, Salzburger Residenzgalerie, and then enriched the museum of modern art.

“There is no doubt that this picture is a marauding trophy,” Hasloer said in comments to Austrian radio Oe1.

Amalia Redlich’s heir is her 83-year-old grandson, George Jorish, who lives in Montreal, Canada.

Salzburg authorities must now decide where to bring back the return recommended by Hasloer. It is supposed to be implemented this summer.

Jorish’s spokesman, Alfred J. Noll, was extremely surprised by the circumstances in which he was contacted.

“I’ve never had to deal with such openness and objectivity in discussing individual issues,” Knoll said in a comment to Oe1. He noted that Stuss met with Jorish in person.

This incident has something in common with the return of five other Klimt paintings in 2006 by the Vienna Belvedere Gallery, Maria Altmann from Los Angeles, the niece of a Vienna patron. Altmann survived the seven-year struggle for his inheritance. The arbitral tribunal issued a ruling confirming that the paintings were seized by the Nazis not in accordance with the law during the annexation of Austria in 1938.

Under a 1998 restitution law, Austria returned the extraction of marauders in the form of paintings that were kept in federal museums to their rightful owners or their heirs, most of whom were Jews.

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