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Five paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt have left Vienna for the United States following a court decision that they be returned to an American heiress, a spokeswoman at the Belvedere museum said Wednesday.
The paintings were removed Tuesday and will first be put on display at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in California, said spokeswoman Sigrid Sprung.
Among the five paintings by turn-of-the-century Art Nouveau painter Klimt are two famous portraits of Adele Bloch-Bauer.
They were removed from exhibition in early February after the Austrian government said it would not buy back the paintings, deemed too expensive, and would return them to Maria Altmann, niece of the Jewish previous owner Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, whose possessions were seized by the Nazis.
Austrian Culture Minister Elisabeth Gehrer has said the government did not see how it could afford to spend 300 million dollars (250 million euros) to buy back the paintings, although these are regarded as highlights of Austrian public collections.
The value of one painting alone, "Gilded Adele" dating from 1907, has been estimated at several 100 million euros.
After years of legal wrangling, an arbitration court ruled in early January that the paintings should be returned to Altmann.
However the transfer does not mean that Klimt's paintings will leave Austria definitively. There have been several private initiatives to buy back at least some of them from the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, who have expressed agreement in principle.
One initiative comes from Christoph Leitl, head of the employers' association, who is seeking sponsors.
Another, called proklimtbilder.at, was launched by a group of academics and art specialists.
Viennese gallery owner John Sailer told the Austrian news agency APA that efforts were continuing to conclude purchase of one or more of the paintings.
There were promising contacts with banks and private companies and there was no need for urgency because none of the works was scheduled for auction soon, he said, quoting Maria Altmann's attorneys.
Other paintings by Klimt including "The Kiss", and those of other Austrian masters such as his friend and admirer Egon Schiele, will remain in Vienna's Belvedere gallery.
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AFPEntertainment-Austria-US-art-justice-Klimt
AFP 151612 GMT 03 06
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