The only known photograph of Gustav Klimt’s painting Silence (upper right in the light frame)
the Hermesvilla, used by the Wien Museum
City of Vienna in 1999, a drawing by Klimt related
beginning in 1976 as an exhibition venue. In
to the university painting Medicine that had been
1885, succeeding the recently deceased Hans
auctioned at the Dorotheum in November of 1942
Makart, the Künstler-Compagnie—which is to
was restored to the heirs of Heinrich Rieger, in
say Gustav Klimt, his brother Ernst, and Franz
whose collection the sheet had originally been
Matsch—completed the painting of the cavetti in
found.47 To date, it has proven impossible to
the bedroom of Empress Elizabeth after designs
restore a highly prominent second sheet—the
46 Alfred Weidinger et al., “Kommentiertes Gesamtverzeichnis des malerischen Werks,” in Alfred Weidinger, ed., Gustav Klimt (Munich et al., 2007), p. 281.
by Julius Victor Berger. They were able to realize
transfer drawing for the university painting
47 Document no. 31/2006.
the ceiling paintings in the adjacent empress’s
Philosophy, which was sold during the same
salon according to their own designs. They
auction—to its rightful owners, who have yet to
chose to depict Spring, for which Gustav Klimt
be identified. Needless to say, the Wien Museum
contributed the figure of Diana above a garland
is continuing to search for the rightful owners
of flowers borne by putti. Due to severe damage
and would appreciate any helpful information in
to the building during World War II, unfortunately,
this regard.
little remains of this original substance.
Following a resolution passed by the Municipal
43
Over the past two decades, the Klimt collection
Council on February 3, 1983, the Historisches
of the Wien Museum has not only been
Museum relinquished seven Klimt drawings,
augmented—there have also been losses of
along with a series of Secession posters (i.e.
various kinds. The Historisches Museum der
duplicates) to the New York art dealer Serge
Stadt Wien was the owner—if only temporarily—
Sabarsky, in compensation for which the
of two oil paintings, namely the Portrait of Mäda
museum received an important drawing by
Primavesi (ca. 1912) and Birch Trees (1903). The
Schiele.48
portrait was purchased at an auction at the
Mentioned now for the sake of completeness is
Dorotheum in 1941, and was restored in 1952
an additional Klimt painting, which, although
to the heirs of Jenny Steiner. It now hangs in
theoretically the property of the Wien Museum,
the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
has regrettably never actually been in our
Birch Trees, a painting from the Bloch-Bauer
possession. This symbolist painting, entitled
collection, was purchased in 1942 by a law firm
Silence, was exhibited in 1898 at the second
and transferred to the Österreichische Galerie
Secession exhibition.49 It was purchased by
in 1948; in 2006, the painting was restored to its
Otto Wagner, who left it to his heirs. In 1945, the
rightful inheritors.
apartment of his daughter Christine was seized
44
45
46
In 2006, as a consequence of the passage of laws
and re-leased, along with all of its furnishings and
governing the restitution of art adopted by the
inventories. Since the apartment also contained
43 Hermesvilla, 2nd rev. ed. (Vienna, 1986), pp. 16–21. 44 Document no. 101/1941, inv. no. 69.204. 45 Document no. 1349/1942, inv. no. 71.500.
48 Document no. 1242/1982. The relinquished sheets were catalogued as inv. nos. 74.930/181, 194, 200, 240, 242, 262, and 267. 49 Cf. the catalogue to the second Secession exhibition (Vienna, 1898), no. 73.
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