Hungarian ministry was deceived regarding a high-value Klimt-painting taken out from the country

The ministry of construction and transport has filed with police a criminal complaint over a painting by Gustav Klimt which is believed to have been taken out of the country illegally, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Klimt painting taken out from Hungary illegally?

According to the ministry’s findings, Klimt’s “lesser known and documented” African Prince was taken abroad after a private individual applied for an export permit in 2023, using “false data and a manipulated photo”, with the intention of misleading the authorities.

In the application, the painting was referred to as an unsigned work with an estimated value of 50,000 forints (EUR 125). Based on the data and the photo provided by the applicant the authorities decided that the painting could be taken out of the country without permit under the law on the cultural heritage, while it turned out later that the picture was one of Klimt’s works that had disappeared from sight over 100 years ago.

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In its investigation, the ministry established that the applicant had failed to mention a stamp on the back of the canvas, indicating that it had been a part of Klimt’s oeuvre. The applicant also misled the authorities, claiming that moving household to Austria was the reason why the painting was being taken out of the country. In fact, the painting later surfaced in art and antiques fairs in Maastricht and New York.

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Legal changes

The ministry noted that African Prince had been officially identified in 2022 as a portrait painted by Klimt in 1897. Zsófia Végvári, the expert who examined the painting also identified the Gustav Klimt Nachlass stamp, clearly visible in photos taken at that time.

The ministry said it would propose legal changes to ensure that in future export permits of artwork could not be issued without physically viewing the objects.

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