MASTERPIECE BY WALDMÜLLER AT DOROTHEUM

MASTERPIECE BY WALDMÜLLER AT DOROTHEUM

Restituted from the Museum Wiesbaden, a painting by the Biedermeier's leading artist is to be auctioned in Vienna

86 years after its looting by National Socialists, a restituted masterpiece by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller is to be sold on 22 October 2025 at Dorotheum. Titled Hansl's first outing (Homecoming children), the work that had been on display at Museum Wiesbaden until June this year has been handed back to its rightful owners in July by the Federal Republic of Germany Art Administration. Dating from 1858, it is estimated at 400.000 to 600.000 Euro. The genre painting is of museum quality. It shows a scene bathed in the refined, expressive light typical of the 19th century master of realist painting. See Booklet for details

Saved by Monument Men
The painting's history exemplifies cases of property seized from Jewish citizens by the National Socialists. The work originates from an art collection that the Viennese entrepreneur Grete Klein, née Fischer (1884 Prague - 1962 Haifa), had inherited in 1923, and of which she had been expropriated in 1938, the year she was forced to flee Austria with her family. The painting by Waldmüller was earmarked for "Special Mission Linz", the so-called Führer Museum. After 1945, the American Military Government and its Monument Men secured it in a tunnel in Bad Aussee. From 1949 to 1960, it was held in trust by the German authorities and exhibited - with some interruptions - on permanent loan at the Museum Wiesbaden until this year.