Gallery Belvedere - a famous art museum in Vienna, Belvedere Palace . Its collection includes paintings by many eras , from the Middle Ages and the Baroque to the XXI century. The main exhibition is devoted to Austrian artists of Fin de siècle and art nouveau.
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History.
Austrian Gallery Belvedere opened in 1903 in the greenhouse of the Lower Belvedere , under the name Modern gallery at the insistence of many contemporary Viennese artists such as Carl Moll .
On the eve of the change of centuries Vienna was famous as a center for contemporary .
Fine Arts.A crucial role in this was played in 1897 based association of artists - Secession . One of the founders of the Vienna Secession was the artist Gustav Klimt.
Gustav Klimt. Kiss. Fragment . 1907.
The participants of the Secession of the environment have sought to open a Klimt Vienna.
and contemporary art donated to the state to celebrate the opening .
Modern gallery a number of paintings and sculptures , including The Plain near Auvers by Vincent van Gogh in 1890
In 1909, the Modern Gallery was renamed the Royal Austrian State Gallery and enriched works of Austrian art .
At the end of World War I Austrian Gallery as it was called until 2007 except for the period of National Socialism , has acquired a large number of paintings, including Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. Until 2000, the Austrian Gallery in the collection are 33 works by Klimt , but not all , as it turned out , legitimately.
[edit] Disputes over the Golden Adele.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Gustav Klimt , 1907, New Gallery , New York .
In 1907, Klimt painted a portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, wife of Viennese industrialist Ferdinand Bloch.Image of Adele Bloch -Bauer in the weave of gold and silver ornaments is perhaps the most famous portrait of Klimt and his main work of the so-called golden period ,
as indicated in the catalog , published for the exhibition of the artist held .
in 2000 in the Austrian Gallery. Portrait is often called the Golden .
Adele , to distinguish it from another portrait of Adele Bloch- Bauer,
written by the artist later . The cost of painting is estimated at 100.
million. In his will, Adele Bloch-Bauer asked her husband.
to pass both the portrait , along with four landscapes by Gustav Klimt Austrian Brush Gallery.However, this has not happened since the time of his death in 1945 of Jewish origin industrialist Gustav Bloch-Bauer in exile in Switzerland. All his possessions were confiscated in Vienna , and paintings by Klimt at the direction of the National Socialists in 1941, were transferred to the Gallery Belvedere.
Austria shied away from the transfer of ownership of Gustav Bloch- Bauer's it.
heirs in 1945-1946. Their numerous attempts to return .
an inheritance or at least to begin negotiations ended in failure.
Only after the heiress Maria Altmann filed in the U.S..
a lawsuit against Austria ( court costs amounted to millions of Austria .
shillings ), Austria declared its readiness to participate in the court .
trial. At the end of the process , which lasted six years , the court .
had decided that the paintings of Gustav Klimt, the Austrian Gallery Belvedere.
must be returned in the U.S. and Canada, the heirs of Gustav Bloch -Bauer, including Maria Altmann . Transferring pictures took place in 2006
[edit] Restitution .
Adele Bloch-Bauer II, 1912, Maria Altmann property , Los Angeles .
Klimt.
Austrian Gallery Belvedere checked the origin of their funds and .
in accordance with Austrian law on restitution handed back in 2001 and .
2004. heirs of the five paintings by Gustav Klimt :.
Apple II, in 2001 - the heiress Nora Stiasny (Nora Stiasny) lady in a hat and feather boa , and in 2001- Heiress Nora StiasnyKrestyansky home with birch trees , in 2001 - the successor Leysus Hermine (Hermine Lasus) Farm on the Attersee , 1914, in 2001 - the successor to Jenny Steiner (Jenny Steiner) Portrait of a Lady , in 2004 - the successor to Bernhard Altmann .
In 2006, the heirs of the Bloch-Bauer family ( including Mary Altmann ) were given :.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907Portret Adele Bloch-Bauer II, 1912Berezovaya Grove, 1903Yablonya I, 1912Doma in Unterahe am Attersee , ca. 1916.
As the Austrian Republic had the right prevail .
the purchase of paintings in Vienna inflamed debate about the sources of funding .
could be purchased is estimated at 200 million euros out of the picture .
Maria Altmann of inheritance , in order to place them in Austria.
Gallery Belvedere. The heirs refused to sell the painting privately .
sponsors who have given their exposure to the Belvedere. In the end.
January 2006Maria Altmann lawyers was announced amount possible.
deal with the Austrian republic of 300 million dollars. On the ground.
of the parliamentary hearings, February 2, 2006 , the Austrian .
the government has decided to relinquish the right precedence .
, respectively, and the purchase of restitution of paintings.
.