Nazi Pilfered Klimt Could Fetch $25 Million

Austrian artist Gustav Klimt’s famous landscape painting, Litzlberg am Attersee (Litzlberg on the Attersee) is expected to sell for more than $25 million, Sotheby’s announced.

The painting garnered headlines earlier this year, after Austria's Museum der Moderne Salzburg agreed to return the work to its rightful heir, George Jorisch. In 1941, the rare landscape was looted by the Nazis from Jorisch’s grandmother, Amalie Redlich, whose entire art collection was seized after she was sent to Lodz ghetto in Poland.

"People love a picture with a story behind it. It always adds desirability when there is a story behind a painting," Simon Shaw, the head of Sotheby's New York's Impressionist and Modern Art division, told Reuters.

"Klimt's landscapes are now considered to be one of the great icons of modern art. They are one of the most recognizable images and their appeal is truly a global one,” Shaw explained.

The 1915 work, depicts Lake Attersee in the Salzkammergut area of Austria, where Klimt frequently vacationed.

These landscape paintings were very affectionate to Klimt. He left Vienna and his patrons, and would paint these for himself. They were very daring because he explored different techniques that were very radical," Shaw said.

Litzlberg on the Attersee is expected to be the main attraction of the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale at Sotheby’s New York, on November 2.