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Case file s139 · Literature and art · 1925
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1925
Adele Bloch-Bauer: Adele Bloch-Bauer vers 1920
Adele Bloch-Bauer. Unknown author. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
24 January 1925
Place
Vienna · Austria
Field
art patron, Klimt sitter
Legal tradition
Austrian civil law; US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act · Common law · Civil law
Historical event
Anschluss of 1938 and Nazi confiscation of Jewish property
Religion
Adele Bloch-Bauer: Jewish (recorded as 20th-century Austrian Jews on Wikipedia)
Literature and artSeized by the stateWorld warsEuropeAustria

Adele Bloch-Bauer's will asked for her Klimt portraits to go to Austria; the Nazis took them, and her niece won them back in 2006

Gustav Klimt painted Adele Bloch-Bauer in 1907 and 1912. Her husband, the sugar industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, owned the paintings†. Adele's will asked Ferdinand to leave the Klimts to the Austrian state gallery at his death†. After the 1938 Anschluss he fled and his collection was seized†. He died in Zurich in 1945 and left his estate to his nephews and nieces, including Maria Altmann†. Austria's Belvedere kept the paintings, citing Adele's will. In 2000 Altmann sued Austria in a US court. The US Supreme Court let the suit proceed in 2004†. Austria agreed to arbitration. On 17 January 2006 an Austrian arbitration court ruled that five Klimts, including both Adele portraits, had been wrongfully taken from Ferdinand and must be returned to his heirs without charge. In June 2006 Ronald Lauder bought Adele Bloch-Bauer I for the Neue Galerie in New York. The price was not announced; The New York Times reported $135 million, citing people familiar with the talks. The other four paintings sold for another $192 million. In 2026 Adele I hangs at the Neue Galerie.

What the law took from it

A will that asks an heir to give property away is a wish, not a transfer; title stayed with the husband who owned the paintings.

Sources
  1. plone.unige.chPress
  2. The Art NewspaperPress
  3. belfercenter.orgPress
  4. tpr.orgPress
  5. wealthmanagement.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Adele Bloch-Bauer's will asked for her Klimt portraits to go to Austria; the Nazis took them, and her niece won them back in 2006,” story s139, https://www.celebrity.estate/adele-bloch-bauer-1925, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artSeized by the stateWorld warsEuropeCommon lawCivil lawAustria