Heir to Klimt Benefits from Sale

A 1913 landscape that Gustav Klimt painted near Lake Garda in Italy sold on February 3, 2010, for £26,921,250 (with buyer's premium included), the proceeds to be divided between the consignor who originally brought it to Sotheby's and the heir to the painting. They reached an amicable agreement prior to the sale. Its first owners, Viennese patrons of the artist, steel magnate Viktor Zuckerkandl and his wife Paula, died in 1927, leaving the painting to Zuckerkandl's sister, Amelie Redlich. When Hitler annexed Austria, she crated her paintings and entrusted them to a shipping company. She and her daughter were deported in 1941 and never heard from again. When her son returned to Austria in 1947, all the crates that had contained the Redlich collection were empty. Amelie's grandson and her sole surviving heir, who was able to leave Austria at age 10, is an 81-year-old former camera shop manager who lives in Montreal.