Gustav Klimt's Adele Bloch Bauer-I Sells For $135 Million, Tales Of A Nazi Past

This story could be told from many different perspectives. There could be the tale of a wealthy Austrian sugar baron, of the breakaway group of artists that constituted the Vienna Secession, of the grand theft of art by the Nazis in the War years, and the cover-up that followed. One could go further back in time and myth when a maiden was impregnated by a shower of gold. One could baldly report on the staggering value given to works of art by those who can afford to do so, and the role of art as an expression of the human condition, that priceless jewel.

Perhaps we should begin with the impregnation of Danae, daughter of Acrisius, by Zeus. Acrisius was told by the oracle that he would be killed at the Earth's end by his daughter's child. He shut up Danae in a bronze tower or chamber to prevent her bearing child, but Zeus transformed himself into a shower of gold that fell through the bronze ceiling, impregnating her. Danae and her child, the famed Perseus were cast into the sea by an angry Acrisius, enclosed in a wooden chest. The hero survived, went on to slay the Medusa, fly on Pegasus, marry Andromeda, and accidentally killed his grandfather in an athletic competition. Much art has been inspired by these events, as we shall see.

Let us accelerate now to the years after the Great War, the first one, which saw much destruction of European industry and property by all sides, notably the Germans. In 1916, the Quartermaster General of the Imperial Armies circulated an assessment of the damages French industry had suffered in the War, as a result of which, German/Austrian industrialists could hope to recoup gains after the war ended, by virtue of greater production. A relevant excerpt on the sugar industry reads,

Sugar Industry. The French refineries, with a few rare exceptions, have suffered greatly from the war. None of them has escaped requisitions. Everywhere their stocks of sugar, of treacle, their provisions of coal, coke and petroleum, rubber and leather belting, live stock, consisting of horses, oxen, etc., carts, harness; implements, narrow gauge railways, patent trucks and electric wiring have been removed, and in only a few shops, four or six, now working for the Germans, has indispensable equipment been left.
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War wastage has caused such damage to whole series of refineries that their reconstruction would be impossible. Even those that survive, in a more or less damaged condition, will long feel the disastrous effects of the war. The French sugar industry should disappear as a competitor on the world market during the next two or three years.

After the War, despite grand reparations from Germany, various industrialists did indeed make pots of lucre, gold and pelf. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a wealthy Viennese sugar merchant had amassed much wealth even before the war. In 1907, he commissioned Gustav Klimt to paint a portrait of his wife, Adele, one of seven Klimt paintings he went on to accumulate. His niece, Maria Altman visited them often in the post-War years. Adele died in 1925, asking her husband to donate the Klimts to the National Austrian Gallery on his death. Before the next decade was out, however, and well before his demise, the Nazi Anschluss in 1938 meant all the paintings and property, including the sugar factory, were consfiscated, "aryanized", and placed under 'Protective Custody'.

Much art was taken from its rightful owners during the Second World War. The ERR seized numerous Jewish art collections, with Hitler mandating in 1940 that all consficated works of art were to be made over to him, and envisioning a National Socialist Art Museum in Linz, his home town. Much of these plundered works are still missing, unreturned to their rightful owners, or worse, destroyed.

Ferdinand died in Switzerland, penniless, willing his by-now notional possessions to his nephews and Maria Altman, who had been able to escape to the United States with her husband from a concentration camp. When the war ended, the Austrian government forbade the removal of 'Austrian art' from their borders, requiring recompense from claimants. Dr Karl Renner, Austrian President, wrote on the issue, stating, "Restitution of property stolen from Jews, this [should be] not to the individual victims, but to a collective restitution fund. The establishment of such and the following foreseeable arrangements is necessary in order to prevent a massive, sudden flood of returning exiles"

Gustav Klimt was as Austrian as the Sacher torte, but his artistic sensibilities ran contrary to the regimental and traditional culture of Vienna. He was a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement, known today as Art Nouveau, that adopted the motto, "to every age its art and to art its freedom", and stretched the boundaries of art in fin-de-siecle Vienna, itself challenged by other intellectuals such as Dr Freud. Klimt borrowed from numerous influences, and he painted the Adele Bloch-Bauer I in a form inspired by the golden shower of Danae by Zeus. It is Byzantine in form, with sumptuous gold patterns such as those at Ravenna in Italy. Amid this ornate background, the subject's face and hands stand out in stark contrast, conveying much confidence and worldly knowledge, as might be apposite for a woman who hosted a notable salon of the day in Vienna. The high point of European Modernism would soon descend into Fascist intolerance and orthodoxy.

The painting, along with many others, was placed in the Belvedere Museum in Vienna after the War, and the museum battled earnestly, and perhaps with subterfuge to keep it with them. It has been the subject of much kitsch and inspiration for everything from coasters to wall-hangings. In 1998, the Austrian government announced it would return works of art that had been plundered by the Nazis to their rightful owners. Numerous court battles followed, as documented on the site set up by the law firm. These bland documents conceal the struggle of an octogenarian concentration camp survivor to reclaim her family's heritage, and the historical and artistic richness of the paintings in question.

The Arbitration Court ruled in January 2006 that the Klimt paintings should be restored without charge to the Bloch-Bauer heirs. The paintings, the Birkenwald/Buchenwald (1903), Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912), Apfelbaum (ca. 1912) and Häuser in Unterach am Attersee (ca. 1916), went on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in April. Christie's helped broker a private sale to Ronald Lauder and the Neue Galerie, a museum dedicated to early twentieth-century German and Austrian art. The price exceeds that for any other painting sold thus far, coming in at about $135 million, although this has not been confirmed to the cent. The LACMA had about the same amount on offer for all five paintings, with the additional promise of keeping them together. The set will now be broken up, and in effect, sold to the highest bidder.

Thus does commerce triumph over art, and Mercury, the Latin god of commerce, merchants and thieves, outwits Jupiter, or Zeus. By Jove!