Gustav Klimt work resurfaces: it is a portrait of an African prince

A work by Gustav Klimt whose trail had been lost reappears at the Tefaf in Maastricht, the major international antiques fair. It is the portrait of an African prince of whom there had been no news since the time of World War II: it has resurfaced, and bringing it to the fair is the W&K - Wienerroither & Kohlbacher gallery, which has put it up for sale at a price of 15 million euros.

The story actually begins four years ago: it was a collector who brought it to the gallery in 2021. At that time, however, the work was in a very poor state of preservation. After restoration, however, the quality of the painting emerged: it was the art historian Alfred Weidinger, author of the artist’s catalog raisonné, who had been on the painting’s trail for some time and was able to identify it as the portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, an 1897 work depicting this African nobleman from a region of present-day Ghana, who attributed the work to Klimt. The occasion on which Klimt painted the man was a unique exhibition at the Tiergarten am Schüttel, a zoo later closed in 1901, which hosted annual ethnographic exhibitions: in other words, people were displayed to the public in settings that recreated the places where they lived. In 1897, there was an exhibition of the Ashanti people from a part of Africa that was colonized by the British at the time: there were 120 members of the Osu tribe who traveled to Vienna to be exhibited before an audience of up to 10,000 people a day.

A small village was therefore set up in the Tiergarten, a short distance from the cages that housed tigers and lions, where the 120 members of the Osu tribe lived for the duration of the exhibition. The Osu were allowed to leave the village, however: indeed, chronicles of the time report invitations that African guests received from the Viennese, and not infrequently therefore visited them at home or went to the theater or cafes. Klimt’s Prince would also be portrayed by another artist of the time, Franz Matsch.

The work, according to W&K Gallery’s reconstruction, remained in Klimt’s possession until his death, after which it was offered at auction at the Samuel Kende House in Vienna in 1923, but we do not know if it was sold. In 1928 the work was shown in an exhibition in Vienna: at that time the owner of the painting was Mrs. Ernestine Klein, who together with her husband Felix had taken over the artist’s studio and turned it into a private residence. Then, in 1938, at the time of the Anschluss, the couple, of Jewish descent, left Austria, and the painting was lost. It resurfaced only recently, when an agreement on ownership was reached with Ernestine Klein’s heirs: it was in fact supposed to be exhibited as early as last year at Tefaf, but due to legal uncertainty the exhibition was postponed until this year.

“The composition and pictorial execution,” notes Weidinger, “indicate Klimt’s turn toward decorative elements, which would characterize his later work, and are directly related to his portraits of later years. In terms of time and style, it is close to the famous Sonja Knips portrait of 1898.”

The portrait of the African prince is the second lost painting by Klimt to reemerge within a short period of time: it was in 2023 that Lady with a Fan, the Austrian painter’s last work, was sold at Sotheby ’s in London for £85.3 million, or €99.2 million, the highest figure ever paid in Europe for a work of art at auction.

Gustav Klimt work resurfaces: it is a portrait of an African prince

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