(1888PressRelease)
September 29, 2006 - International cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder contracted Humboldt to move the most expensive painting ever purchased along with three other paintings by Gustav Klimt, Austria’s most revered artist, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to the Neau Gallery in Manhattan. The painting, “Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” is a gold-flecked portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist and hostess of a prominent Vienna salon. Lauder paid $135 million for the piece. Previously, the largest sum ever paid for a painting was $104.1 million for Picasso’s “Boy With a Pipe” (1905). “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” along with the three other Klimt paintings involved in the move were on display through Sept. 13. at the Neau Gallery’s exhibition “Gustav Klimt: Five Paintings from the Collection of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer.”
The move was Humboldt’s most complex undertaking to date logistically, equipment-wise and personnel-wise. It involved two full-sized, climate-controlled tractor-trailers staffed by six truck drivers driving round-the-clock shifts and an eight-person armed security detail traveling in four security vans provided by Safir Rosetti Security, a security firm run by the former police commissioner of New York City. Instrumentation within the custom-made crates also provided temperature and humidity readings to the entire team throughout transit. The tractor-trailers were outfitted with GPS tracking devices, which were monitored via the Internet. The trailers were specially sealed and secured by locks that could only be opened by Lauder.
Drivers were not informed of the cargo they’d be handling until the night before the move and were informed of two possible routes they might use. It wasn’t until the morning of the move that they were informed which route they would use. The entire trip was estimated to take 59 hours, however, thanks to efficiencies with which the Humboldt team operated, it was completed it in 53 hours.
“For us to be asked to do this was a real honor,” says Howard Goldman, CEO of Humboldt Storage and Moving Company. “I am very pleased, but not surprised, with how we were able to handle the unusual demands of this job. And I’m also very pleased that our client Mr. Lauder and the Neau Gallery were extremely happy with us and how we handled everything. The paintings traveled over 3000 miles and arrived in perfect condition, and we did it all in 53 hours instead of the 59 they were expecting.”
“When you think of all the things that could have gone wrong—a hijacking, bad weather, an accident or even someone setting up a roadblock in Wyoming—it’s amazing how smoothly the operation went. Save for a panhandler that came up to one of the trucks asking for money while we were parked briefly at one of the rest stops, the move went off completely without a hitch…poor guy, he was surrounded within seconds of approaching the truck by all eight security guards with semi-automatic weapons.
Considered one of Klimt’s finest masterpieces, Lauder’s purchase and relocation of the painting to the Neau Gallery represented the final leg of a long and contested journey. For years following World War II, the painting, along with the four other Klimt pieces— a second portrait of Adele from 1911 and three landscapes: “Beechwood” (1903), “Apple Tree I” (circa 1911) and “Houses in Utterach on Lake Atter” (1916)—was the focus of a restitution battle between the Austrian government and a niece of Bloch-Bauer, 90-year-old Maria Altmann, formerly of Austria, who now lives with other family members in Los Angeles. For the last 60 years, the portrait hung in the Austrian Gallery in the Belvedere Palace in Vienna. Mrs. Bloch-Bauer died of meningitis in 1925 and Mr. Bloch-Bauer left all his possessions behind when he fleed the country following Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938. The Nazis subsequently confiscated his property, placing three of the paintings in the Austrian Gallery and selling the rest.
In her original will, Mrs. Bloch-Bauer left the paintings to Austria, but after spending the war years in Switzerland, Mr. Bloch-Bauer revoked all existing wills and since the couple had no children, he wrote a new will leaving the entire estate to the children of his brother Gustav: Robert, Luise and Maria, the only one of the three siblings still living. In years following the war, Maria and her surviving family members were able to regain some of paintings and other valuables from Bloch-Bauer estate, but the government of Austria maintained that Mrs. Bloch-Bauer had bequeathed the entire estate to the government of Austria. The family didn’t have a case against the Austrian government until a Viennese journalist by the name of Hubertus Czernin recovered Mrs. Bloch-Bauer’s original will in 1998. In it, she expressed a wish, but did not require, that the Klimt paintings go to Austria. The family then asked and was granted the right to sue the Austrian government in the U.S. by U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2004, the high court ruled the family could sue Austria. The case was finally decided in favor of the family at an Austrian arbitration tribunal in January 2005. In addition to “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” the family recovered the other aforementioned paintings.
Lauder came to purchase the painting as a result of a friendship that had developed between he and Maria over the years. “Adele I” will remain at the Neau Gallery, of which Lauder is a co-founder. The future of the other paintings, estimated to have a collective value of around $100 million, is uncertain but will likely end up on the auction block at Christy’s.
Humboldt Storage and Moving is located at 100 New Boston Drive, Canton, MA 02021. For more information or free brochures outlining the company’s many services, please call (781) 821-8777. For additional information visit http://www.humboldt.com.
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