Woman in Gold

Filming for eight weeks in the United States, Austria, and London, Simon Curtis had an $11 million dollar budget to produce a feature movie for BBC and the Weinstein Company about the extraordinary life of a work of art, the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer painted in Vienna in 1907 by Gustav Klimt. In a short television interview, Simon Curtis noted that his production required a great deal of patience spending time with a remarkable cast to recreate the story of Maria Altman, the heiress who brought suit to recover this work and a number of others that were confiscated from her family by the Nazis during World War II in 1939.

Adele Bloch-Bauer (1881-1925)

Dame Helen Mirren plays the role of Maria Altman, a World War II survivor of the Anschluss by the fascist military regime which moved in to their family home in Vienna and took everything of value. Maria and her husband were able to escape from Austria and rebuild their family in Los Angeles. There she met the nephew of a dear childhood friend, Randol Schoenberg, who was a Princeton graduate practicing law with a firm in California. Together they brought suit to recover the Bloch-Bauer family art assets, the most famous of which was a painting of her Aunt Adele by Gustav Klimt. In the movie, the spirited scenes of life in the apartment of the Bloch-Bauer family on the Ringstrasse in Vienna are a delicious flashback to the height of society at this time. Music, literature and painting were embraced by successful business leaders such as Maria’s father and uncles. Maria’s aunt Adele’s portrait was painted in oil and gold leaf by Gustav Klimt, a very popular artist in the Viennese Expressionist movement.

In 2012, journalist Anne- Marie O’Connor published her interpretation of this saga in a book entitled, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt’s Masterpiece. In public speeches about her book, Anne-Marie said she was asked to write the book by Maria Altman herself when she lived in Los Angeles where her husband, William Booth, was bureau chief for the Washington Post. Her extremely detailed account of this story chronicles the history of the occupation of Austria and the aftermath of the Nazi occupation in 500 pages of detail.

There are three remarkable parts to this story: the survival of the painting which was hidden in an underground salt mine in Altaussee, Austria with 6577 other works of art, the escape and survival of five heirs to this picture, and the remarkable legal trajectory that brought the return of the picture to the rightful heirs in the United States. Both the books and documentaries, The Rape of Europa and The Monument Men were also designed to educate our current generation about the confiscation, looting, and destruction of cultural property during World War II. Perhaps the most imperative contribution that the films bring to the fore is to highlight that there are still thousands of works at large in the world awaiting discovery and restitution to their rightful owners.

While some critics have found the performances of Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds a bit unconvincing, I disagree, and thought the footage in this film was riveting with provocative dialogue, historical accuracy, and masterful understanding of the details of this complex story. From both the artistic rendering of a copy of the original painting, which took artist Steve Miller five weeks to produce for filming in Austria, to the argument before the United States Supreme Court about the efficacy of Altman’s challenge to jurisdiction for the case under a complex law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, the actors and director captured the essence of the action. It was the personal advocacy by Altman and Schoenberg which won the day in each instance. Their solo appearances before the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices as well as the final three arbiters in the mediation process in Vienna were so moving in the film. All parties present were convinced that returning the pictures was the right thing to do.

The portrait today resides In New York at the Neue Galerie, a public museum started by Estee Lauder heir, Ronald Lauder, who purchased the Adele Bloch-Bauer portrait in June of 2006 for a record $135 million dollars through Christie’s auction house. It has been called by many The Mona Lisa of Austria. Rumors have been floated as to whether or not Adele had an affair with the painter who was able to so uniquely capture her restless sensual feminism. Adele was childless ambitious and intellectual amidst a society that did not advocate education for women Adele was a beauty captured by Klimt in both oil and gold leaf, a technique he learned from this father, Ernst Klimt, a gold engraver. O’Connor noted that she felt Adele was attracted to the roguish virility of Klimt while posing for him. Vienna at the time was obsessed by the new work of Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams. Sexuality was on everyone’s mind as even their Emperor Franz Joseph was known to publicly vacation with his mistress throughout his kingdom.

At this present time when many plaintiffs from other countries are seeking restitution of stolen artwork such as the Fanjul family in Florida whose business, home, and painting collection were taken away in Cuba in 1961, US courts will be asked to revisit how we can fairly deal with their legal claims. With political relations between Cuba and the United States in revision, we will see if the US Supreme Court once again allows for repatriation of confiscated works of art. This work by Spanish artist, Joaquin Sorolla, from the former Fanjul collection came up for sale in Geneva at Sotheby’s, having been smuggled out of Cuba. The auction house removed the Fanjul picture from their sale. Time will tell if justice is indeed priceless, and the rightful owners of such works win their day in court to argue for the return of these works.

Joaquin Sorolla ( 1863-1923) oil on canvas