She Asked for the Painting to Be Donated to Austria. The Nazis Did It for Her. | VERSO

Gustav Klimt spent four years painting Adele Bloch-Bauer — four years, hundreds of sketches, real gold leaf on canvas. Adele died in 1925 and left an informal request: donate the Klimt paintings to an Austrian gallery. Her husband Ferdinand never got the chance to honor it.
In 1938, the Nazis entered Austria. Ferdinand fled. In 1941, the regime seized the paintings. The Belvedere gallery in Vienna displayed them as Austrian cultural heritage for decades. They called it "The Woman in Gold." It was someone else's gold.
Ferdinand's niece, Maria Altmann, had escaped Austria in 1938 hidden in a car. In 1998, she learned that declassified documents proved the seizure was illegal. She sued Austria. Seven years of legal battle — including a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2006, the arbitration panel ruled in her favor. Maria Altmann was 90 years old. She sold the portrait for $135 million to the Neue Galerie in New York. It's still there.
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Видео She Asked for the Painting to Be Donated to Austria. The Nazis Did It for Her. | VERSO канала Verso Art