Gustav Klimt’s strange African royal prince picture– DW– 03/21/2025

For the lengthiest time, “Portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona” was believed to have actually been shed. Though Gustav Klimt depicted the noble in 1897, the paint had actually not been seen given that 1938.

The paint’s current reappearance created an art globe feeling and it is currently available for EUR15 million ($ 16.3 million) at the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

A collection agency pair brought the greatly dirtied paint to the gallery of the Viennese art suppliers Wienerroither & & Kohlbacher, that specialize in Klimt’s functions.

“It was a huge surprise for us,” Alois Wienerroither, taking care of supervisor of the gallery, informed DW.

Even though they have greater than 25 years of Klimt competence, the gallery proprietors did not promptly identify the prize concealed under the crud.

“We looked at the painting, it was dirty and also had a bad frame, it didn’t look like Klimt at all,” stated Wienerroither.

After cleansing it, nonetheless, there was no question that it was Klimt’s shed paint of a West African royal prince from what is currently Ghana.

Gustav Klimt: a leader of the Austrian progressive

The Viennese musician Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was just one of Austria’s crucial painters in the late 19th century.

He is thought about a rep of Viennese art nouveau and his abstract pictures of females, such as “The Kiss” and “The Golden Woman,” are especially popular.

In 1897, Klimt established the supposed “Vienna Secession” with a team of 50 similar progressive musicians that wished to brake with the practical design of background paint, transforming to a brand-new art, art nouveau, rather. Klimt was the head of state of the brand-new organization.

It was throughout a duration of change that Klimt repainted the picture of the West African royal prince — showing him with realistic look yet supplying tips of what would certainly be available in later jobs.

For Wienerroither, the rediscovered job is an essential paint in Klimt’s body of work. “The floral background of the painting is already modern and is also reminiscent of the portrait of Sonja Knips, daughter of an officer’s family, which he painted a year later, also with a floral background.”

International ethnographic events in Vienna

The most updated art historic research study recommends the royal prince positioned for Klimt as component of among Vienna’s supposed Völkerschau ethnographic events.

Though commonly viewed as racist and undignified eyeglasses from today’s point of view, such “human zoos” were prominent at the millenium.

The events happened throughout Europe, consisting of in Germany, and saw individuals standing for different ethnic teams maintained in open rooms, like pets in a zoo, offered for public glaring under damaging problems.

How did Klimt and the royal prince satisfy?

It had long been vague exactly how Klimt in fact fulfilled the West African royal prince yet in 2007, art chronicler, digital photographer and gallery supervisor Alfred Weidinger released a brochure of Klimt’s paints that recorded the reality that the supervisor of the Vienna Zoo had actually welcomed agents of the West African Osu people to go to Austria in 1897.

The nephew of the Osu king, Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, was sent out to Vienna as leader of the team.

The royal prince not just rested for Klimt, he was additionally illustrated by musician Franz Matsch, whose paint of Nii Nortey Dowuona awaits the Musee National d’Histoire et d’Art in Luxembourg.

Thrilling dramatization unravels around royal prince’s paint

After Klimt’s fatality in 1918, Ernestine Klein got the musician’s workshop and transformed it right into a rental property. She might additionally have actually purchased the picture at a 1923 Vienna public auction, though there is no paperwork of such a sale. Nevertheless, there is a black-and-white picture of the paint in the matching public auction magazine.

In 1928, one decade after Klimt’s fatality, the paint showed up once more, this time around at a Klimt retrospective.

“And that’s when we were able to find the return receipt,” stated Wienerroither, that had actually laid out to map the provenance of the paint, informed DW. “Ernestine Klein got the painting back from the exhibition and signed for it.”

However, as her other half was Jewish, the household needed to take off from the National Socialists in 1938 when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis linkedAustria “There is every indication that they left all their belongings behind in the house. When they came back after the war, everything was gone,” stated Wienerroither.

As the paint never ever showed up at public auction after the battle, the gallery proprietor believes it altered hands via personal art suppliers.

When paints seized or taken by the National Socialists, as an example, show up up for sale, their beginning and provenance have to be examined. Wienerroither consequently saw Klein’s offspring, with whom he got to an economic contract.

“There are several heirs and it took a long time until we finally negotiated an agreement,” he stated.

Visit to the royal prince’s household

And yet, the tale does not finish below either. In Ghana, it is simply the start. “It’s been proven who this prince is, and the descendants have even been traced,” stated Wienerroither.

Again, it was a simple coincidence.

“Alfred Weidinger, who wrote the Klimt catalog, had been taking photos of kings in Africa for years,” statedWienerroither This is exactly how he located the household of William Nii Nortey Dowuona in Ghana.

“He is now in contact with the family. It’s unbelievable. Apparently, they still have items they brought back from Vienna, they’re still in the family,” stated Wienerroither.

Meanwhile, a conference has actually been intended with Weidinger and William Nii Nortey Dowuona’s offspring inGhana The tale of Klimt, the West African royal prince and the trip of the paint that derived from that conference will certainly be the topic of an upcoming 50-minute tv docudrama.

This post was initially composed in German.