One of the last works by Art Nouveau painter Gustav Klimt was sold at auction in Vienna on Wednesday for €30 million ($32.1 million).
The "Portrait of Miss Lieser" went surprisingly quickly to a bidder in the room at the Auction House Im Kinsky.
The work, which had previously been estimated at between €30 million and €50 million, was thought to have been lost for 100 years. The auction house spoke of a "magnificent rediscovery."
Around 15,000 art enthusiasts had come to Im Kinsky for the preview in Vienna over the past few days, it said. It had been privately owned in Austria for decades, the auction house said in advance. The current owners had inherited it from distant relatives around two years ago.
The portrait of a lady is one of the most beautiful works from Klimt's last creative period. The 140 x 80-centimetre painting shows a young woman in a strict frontal pose against a red background. Around her shoulders is a cape richly decorated with flowers.
The Lieser family, who commissioned the portrait, belonged to the wealthy Viennese upper middle class. The industrialist family was later persecuted during the Nazi era because of their Jewish ancestry.
According to the auction house, after intensive research, there is no evidence that the painting was confiscated at the time. "Conversely, however, no evidence has been found that the painting was not looted between 1938 and 1945," it said in an online video for the auction.
Klimt probably began work on the painting in May 1917, as the well-documented creative process suggests. According to the auction house, 25 preliminary studies were made.
When the painter died in February 1918 as a result of a stroke, only small parts of the work had not been completed.
"The fact that this painting was not signed by Klimt shows that he himself did not yet consider the portrait to be finished," the description of the work states.
Klimt, co-founder of the Vienna Secession art movement, is perhaps best known for his 1908 painting "The Kiss."