Believed Lost Freud Portrait in Vienna is Likely Original from 1936

The Jewish Museum Vienna owns a Sigmund Freud portrait painted by Wilhelm V. Krausz. Until now, it was assumed to be a studio copy by the Viennese artist, with the original lost as Nazi-looted art. However, it is "with great probability the original painting from 1936," according to a release from the Sigmund Freud Private Foundation. This conclusion was reached during research for a special exhibition at the Sigmund Freud Museum.

In 1936, Krausz painted the already world-famous Freud at his summer residence in Grinzing. Besides the "original," which Freud's brother acquired, the Viennese portraitist created two studio copies. After the "Anschluss" in 1938, Alexander Freud fled via Switzerland to Great Britain and emigrated to Toronto, Canada, in 1940, where he died in 1943. In the post-war years, the intensive search for lost family pieces was unsuccessful, with the last traces found in a Gestapo notice for the confiscation of all of Alexander Freud's furniture from 1940.

Freud Portrait Auctioned in 2019

The portrait was first sold in 2006 at the Vienna auction house im Kinsky from an "Austrian private collection" to the USA. In 2019, it was offered again at the same auction house and acquired by the Friends of the Jewish Museum for its permanent collection. Despite careful examination, it could not be determined at the time that the work was looted art or the original, according to the release on Monday.

The curatorial team of the Sigmund Freud Museum came across a previously inaccessible photo of Alexander Freud's apartment during research for the exhibition "The Freud Case. Documents of Injustice" in 2025. The original portrait is visible in the photo, which seems to match the painting in the Jewish Museum. Bernhard Brandstätter, head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Dorotheum Vienna, was consulted as an expert and also concludes that it "can only be one and the same portrait."

Case for the Restitution Commission

Based on these findings, an inquiry was made to the auction house im Kinsky in hopes of learning more about the provenance of the painting. In a further step, the case will be handed over to the Vienna Restitution Commission. The original Freud portrait will be on loan and displayed in the special exhibition from October 24.

(APA/Red)

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