Apple Tree II
"Apple Tree II (German. Apfelbaum II or Der Apfelbaum) is a 1916 landscape by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. Austria mistakenly restituted the painting to the wrong family due to confusion with another Klimt painting, "Rosiers sous les arbres ("Roses under the Trees").
History of the painting
Klimt painted several artworks depicted trees. One of them was Apple Tree II which he painted in 1916. Over the years, several different stories, of varying accuracy, have been told about the itinerary of Klimt's Apple Tree II. In 2018, after Apple Tree II was pulled from an exhibition at the Leopold Museum, Austrian officials confirmed that they had made an error, and that the painting's provenance needed to be corrected. They stated that the original owner was the famous Viennese Jewish art collector Serena Lederer 1867-1943) and not, as they had previously thought, a different famous Viennese Jewish art collector Nora Stiasny. [1]
Lederer lent Apple Tree II to an exhibition in 1926 and it was documented as Lederer property after 1938, when Austria merged with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.[1] The Lederers owned a large and important collection of Klimt paintings, including portraits of members of their family. The Nazis seized many of August and Serena Lederer's paintings.[2][3]
A Nazi party member and film director named Gustav Ucicky obtained Apple Tree II somehow. In 1961, Ucicky donated Apple Tree II to the Belvedere Museum.
Restitution to the wrong family
In the 1990s the Stiasny heirs filed a restitution claim for a Klimt in the Belvedere collection which they mistakenly thought had been owned by their family, when in fact it had been owned by the Lederer family.
In 2001, Austria's Art Restitution Advisory Board cemented the error by "returning" Apple Tree II to an heir of Nora Stiansy, Hermine Müller-Hofmann. Müller-Hofmann's nephew, Viktor Hoffmann, sold the Klimt to the French collector Bernard Arnault.[1]
In 2015 Austria's Commission for Provenance Research confirmed that it had misidentified the painting, confusing Apple Tree II with a different Klimt painting entitled Roses under the Trees, and restituted it to the wrong family. Nora Stiasy had owned Roses under the Trees, the Commission stated, not Apple Tree II.[1]
In fact Apple Tree II had belonged to a different Jewish family of art patrons, the Lederers.[4] However, when the Lederers, attempted to recover their painting, Austrian officials rejected their demand.[1][5]
It is thought that after Serena Lederer's death in 1943, her children Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt (1894-1944) and Erich Lederer (1896-1985) inherited the work, but it is not know how Gustav Ucicky gained possession of it.[1]
Viennese Jewish art collector dynasties
The glittering art culture of pre-Nazi Vienna was supported by Jewish art patrons and collectors, who were massively plundered and murdered under the Nazis.
Both the Zuckerhandl/Stiasny and the Lederer families were great Viennese art collectors and patrons of Klimt, who painted beautiful portraits of members of both families. Famous examples include the portrait of Serena Lederer[6] and the portrait of Amalie Zuckerhandl, the mother of Nora Stiasny.[7]
Apple Tree II was confused with a different Klimt, entitled "Roses Under the Trees" [8] which hung at the Orsay Museum (Rosiers sous les arbres inv. RF 1980-195). On March 15, 2021 France's Minister of Culture announced that France would restitute Rosiers sous les arbres to the heirs of Nora Stiasny (1898-1942), who had owned the painting and who was murdered in the Holocaust.[9][10]
The Lederers have been unable to recover Apple Tree II, even after the restitution to the wrong family was recognized. The Lederers have registered 64 search requests for Klimts on the German Lost Art Foundation Lost Art Database.[11]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f D'Arcy, David (2018-11-13). "Austria returns wrong Klimt to wrong family". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. Retrieved 2026-03-09.
- ^ "Austria Criticized for Restituting Klimt Painting to Wrong Family". Artforum. 2018-11-16. Retrieved 2026-03-08.
Apple Tree II belonged to Serena Lederer, a prominent Jewish collector whose collection was seized by Nazis following Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938;
- ^ "Art Collection of August, Serena and Erich Lederer". Retrieved 2026-03-09.
- ^ "Restitution d'une œuvre spoliée | Musée d'Orsay". www.musee-orsay.fr (in French). Retrieved 2026-03-08.
A la fin des années 1990, une demande en restitution auprès de la galerie du Belvédère, musée national d'art moderne autrichien, avait été formulée par les ayants droit de Nora Stiasny et avait abouti à la restitution en 2001 du tableau, Pommier II de Gustav Klimt. Cependant, en juillet 2017, les autorités autrichiennes en charge des recherches de provenance sur le patrimoine ont conclu qu'il y avait eu erreur sur l'œuvre restituée.
- ^ "The turbulent history of Klimt's Nazi-seized works". dw.com. Retrieved 2026-03-08.
- ^ "Gustav Klimt - Serena Pulitzer Lederer (1867–1943) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art". www.metmuseum.org (in French). Retrieved 2026-03-08.
- ^ "Portrait d'Amalie Zuckerkandl", Wikipédia (in French), 2025-01-08, retrieved 2026-03-09
- ^ "Restitution d'une œuvre spoliée | Musée d'Orsay". www.musee-orsay.fr (in French). Retrieved 2026-03-08.
Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin, ministre de la Culture, a annoncé le 15 mars 2021 le lancement de la procédure de restitution du tableau de Gustav Klimt, Rosiers sous les arbres, conservé au musée d'Orsay (inv. RF 1980-195), aux ayants droit de Nora Stiasny (1898-1942), qui en a été spoliée à Vienne en août 1938.
- ^ "Restitution d'une œuvre spoliée | Musée d'Orsay". www.musee-orsay.fr (in French). Retrieved 2026-03-08.
- ^ "Spolié par les nazis, le seul Klimt des collections françaises quitte le musée d'Orsay pour être restitué aux ayants droit". Archived from the original on 15 March 2021.
- ^ "Suche | Lost Art-Datenbank". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 2026-03-09.