Austria might be forced to surrender seven major works by Gustav Klimt which were confiscated by the Nazis during the Second World War, well-informed sources said in Vienna in November 1998. Maria Altmann, the heir of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a Jewish industrialist from Czechoslovakia, has requested the restitution of the works worth some US $ 100 million. A Los Angeles resident, she said all of her uncle's belongings had been seized by the Nazis after the 1938 Anschluss in Austria.
Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer had gathered a collection of paintings, porcelains and works of art and had been one of Klimt's main patrons. He died in extreme poverty in 1945 as an exile in Switzerland. Among the seven paintings now exhibited in the Österreichische Gallery of Vienna are two portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of Ferdinand who died in 1925. One of these, painted in 1907, is worth some US $ 30 million alone.
Some of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer's paintings were later included in the private collections of Adolf Hitler and Marshall Herman Goering. Others were given to the Alte Pinakotek of Munich, to the Dresden Museum and were also intended to the future Reich Museum which Hitler wanted to set up.
Maria Altmann tried to recover her uncle's belongings as soon as 1948 and managed to get some back but Austrian authorities always refused to surrender the Klimt works. Last October, the Austrian parliament voted a new law which enables the restitution of all works of art seized by the Nazis or surrendered under pressure during World War Two.
The law also provides for the restitution of works bought in good faith after the war. It has been estimated that over 500 works falling in these categories have remained in Austria after 1945. Several Jewish families which suffered Nazi pillages might also follow a path similar to that taken by Maria Altmann.
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