Austria said on Thursday it would not buy back five masterpieces by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, but instead return them to a descendant of the paintings’ former Jewish owner whose possessions were seized by the Nazis.
Austrian Culture Minister Elisabeth Gehrer said, following a ministerial meeting in Vienna, the government did not see how it could spend $300-million (€248 million) to buy back the paintings, seen as masterpieces of Austrian public collections.
Gehrer added that the state had decided to return the paintings which were once owned by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and seized by the Nazis during World War II, to his niece Maria Altmann.
Altmann’s lawyer would be informed that Austria was no longer interested in negotiations to acquire the masterpieces.
”The paintings are at the heir’s immediate disposal,” she said.
An arbitration court decided in mid-January the five Klimt paintings — among them two famous gold Portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer — should be returned to Austrian-born Altmann, who lives in Los Angeles.
Altmann wished to sell the paintings to the Austrian state rather than private sponsors, but Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said after Thursday’s meeting, ”We are not in a position to and do not want to” buy back the paintings.
The decision ends a period of intense negotiations between Austria and Altmann, who will now be able to auction off the five paintings, still on display at Vienna’s Belvedere museum, following a six-year legal battle.
”It represents a great loss for the Belvedere’s collections and also for Austrian culture,” the museum’s director Gerbert Frodl said.
Gehrer ”looked very hard for sponsors to back the acquisition of one or more of the paintings” but ”given the high price, these efforts were unfortunately unsuccessful,” the museum said.
Austrian museums had an acquisition budget of €70-million ($84,5-million) in 2005.
”It is obvious the republic cannot buy something at such a high price,” said Wilfried Seipel, director of the of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna’s art museum.
”The price of the paintings went beyond all estimates,” he said, adding, ”to buy using taxpayers’ money would be irresponsible”.
”Even sponsors could not afford such a high price,” he said.
Among potential sponsors were the Austrian national bank, a supermarket chain, and the businessman and former vice-chancellor Hannes Androsch.
”It’s a pity but the price was really unreasonable,” Viennese art dealer Karlheinz Essl told Agence France Presse.
”We will see how much the artworks go for under the auctioneer’s hammer,” he said.
In Parliament, the opposition Social Democrats (SPOe), who saw buying back the paintings as the country’s ”moral duty,” said this was a ”gigantic disgrace” for Austria and imposed by the government.
The government ”pushed Mrs Altmann’s outstretched hand away” when it could have struck a deal to keep the paintings, SPOe leader Josef Cap said.
Altmann issued an amicable proposal to Austria in 1999 that went unanswered. She then filed a lawsuit that cost Vienna €3,5-million ($4,2-million) in legal fees. – AFP
