A painting of Gustav Klimt’s has been found in Vienna after being thought lost for 100 years.
Portrait of Fraulein Lieser once belonged to a Jewish family in Austria and was last seen in public in 1925.
Its fate after that is unclear but the family of the current owners have had the painting since the 1960s, reports the BBC.
The im Kinsky auction house estimates the painting’s value at more than $54 million (£42 million). It called the rediscovery „a sensation”.
The portrait will now be put up for auction on 24 April on behalf of the owners, and the legal successors of the Lieser family. The portrait once belonged to the Lieser family, who were wealthy Jewish industrialists in Vienna.
This is based on the Washington Principles, an international agreement to return Nazi-looted art to the descendants of the people they were taken from.
Before the auction, the painting will be presented at various international locations including the UK, Switzerland, Germany and Hong Kong, the auction house said.
An art lawyer told Austrian media they had so far found no evidence that the work had been looted or stolen before or during World War Two.
Klimt’s art has fetched huge sums at auction in the past.His Lady with a Fan piece sold for £85.3 million in June, making it the most valuable work of art ever sold at auction in Europe.
