Klimt’s ‘Portrait of Miss Lieser’ fetches $32 million euros at auction

VIENNA (Reuters) – Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Miss Lieser”, a painting of a young woman left unfinished when the Austrian artist died, sold at auction on Wednesday for 30 million euros ($32 million).

The work was long thought to have been lost when in fact it was hanging in a private villa near Vienna for decades, according to the auction house Im Kinsky that put it on display in January before putting it under the hammer. Im Kinsky had estimated its value at 30 million to 50 million euros.

($1 = 0.9355 euros)

(Reporting by Francois Murphy. Editing by Jane Merriman)