The last descendant of a Jewish family is accusing an auction house of trying to sell off a $100 million painting of her great aunt by a major artist after changing its name to hide the fact it had been stolen by Nazis during the Holocaust, new court papers says.
Patricia Leahy — an American member of Austria’s wealthy Lieser family — claims that the Vienna auction house im Kinsky pulled the sneaky move so they could make a fortune by peddling Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Fräulein Margarethe Lieser” instead of returning it to its rightful owners.
The work was taken from the Jewish family in 1938 by Nazis and never seen again — until it suddenly reappeared at the Vienna auction house in 2024 under an altered name and a false provenance, Leahy claims.
The auction spot put the painting on the bloc in 2024 after taking the word “Margarethe” out of the title in what Leahy claims was an attempt to hide its real identity.
Although the suit says experts put the works’ value at $100 million — as it was one of Klimt’s final paintings — the underhanded auction attempt only fetched a $30 million bid, which was later withdrawn.
The painting “has now become the symbol of a poignant narrative,” says suit, which was filed Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court .
“The portrait of a young Jewish woman frozen in 1918, which survived the ravages of history— including the Anschluss and looting of Jewish property—now compels the legal system to reckon with questions of memory, ownership, and restitution,” the suit says.
The painting was commissioned by Adolpf and Silvia Lieser, who wanted Klimt — a legend of Austrian Art Nouveau — to paint an image in his famous style of their daughter, Margarethe, who is Leahy’s great aunt.
Klimt, however, died in 1918 before delivering the portrait, which was later found, unsigned in a nearly-finished state inside his studio and delivered to the Lieser family, the suit says.
It was shown publicly only once, at Vienna’s Neue Galerie in 1925, and remained in the Lieser family’s possession until it was taken by Nazis in the late 1930s, the suit says.
Margarethe and her children would go on to survive the Holocaust and emigrate to the UK, but had no knowledge of the work’s whereabouts, court papers say. She would later die in 1965.
One of her son’s, William, “was actively trying to find it until his death in 2021, according to the lawsuit.”
“The painting attained a legendary status in Klimt’s catalog,” the filing claims, “a ‘lost’ late masterpiece cited in books but not seen in living memory.”
But when Auktionshaus im Kinsky got the work, it stripped “Margarethe” from the title, claiming new research revealed her cousins might be the subject, Leahy’s suit claims.
This identity crisis was a tactical maneuver, the filing states.
According to the auction listing, the current owner — who the suit alleges to be Eva Ropper of Vienna — contacted heirs “to agree on a ‘fair and just solution’ with them all in 2023.”
Leahy, who claims that she reached out once the auction house began publicizing its “landmark” sale, was not included in any settlements, despite claiming to be the last blood heir to the Lieser family.
Plus, her suit claims that the “unprecedented” move to sell “such a major Klimt painting” through the relatively small im Kinsky auction house was actually a move to avoid the strict guidelines of international shops like Christie’s or Sotheby’s regarding looted art.
“Notably, Austria’s laws concerning restitution of Nazi looted art are not as stringent,” the suit claims.
Leahy says lawyers for Ropper and im Kinsky have shut her out, leaving her with no choice but to sue for possession of the lost work.
“Holocaust-era restitution cases are not just about provenance,” says her lawyer, Oren J. Warshavsky, “they are about people, families, and property taken under coercion. Our client is not asking for anything extraordinary—only to be recognized and included in a rightful process that should have happened decades ago.”
The auction house did not respond to requests for comment by The Post.
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