Klimt’s Long-Lost Portrait of West African Prince Unveiled at International Art Fair
A Lost Masterpiece Reemerges: Klimt’s Forgotten Portrait of an African Prince Unveils Complex History
After nearly a century hidden from public view, a striking and historic painting by Austrian master Gustav Klimt — once thought lost — captivated audiences at the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) held in Maastricht, the Netherlands, this March. The 1897 oil portrait, believed to be the only known painting of a West African royal by the celebrated artist, was recently rediscovered in a private European collection and restored to its former brilliance.
Depicting Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuon, a Ga (Osu) noble from modern-day Ghana, the portrait had remained hidden for decades until it was brought to Wienerroither and Kohlbacher, a Vienna-based gallery renowned for specializing in Austrian art including works by Klimt and Egon Schiele.
Forgotten but Not Lost: A Rare Art Discovery
In 2023, the collectors who owned the painting approached the gallery with a soiled and poorly framed artwork that bore a now-faded estate stamp. Though initially unrecognized due to its condition, the painting’s quality and unique subject intrigued the gallery. Drawing upon the expertise of Alfred Weidinger, a leading Klimt scholar who had been searching for the portrait for nearly 20 years, the piece was authenticated as a genuine Klimt work.
Weidinger noted that the composition’s design and use of floral motifs foreshadowed the decorative emphasis that came to define much of Klimt’s later work. The portrait is stylistically contemporaneous with other important early works like Portrait of Sonja Knips (1897–98) and eventually iconic pieces such as the portraits of Mäda and Eugenia Primavesi.
The painting stands out not just for its distinct painterly style but also for its subject: a Black African prince depicted with dignity and poise by one of Europe’s most revered artists at a time when few such images existed.
A Historical and Cultural Context: Colonialism and Human Spectacle
As extraordinary as the portrait itself is, the circumstances under which it was made reflect a troubling time in European history. In 1897, Dowuon and 120 members of the Osu people participated in a “völkerschau” — ethnographic exhibitions often referred to as “human zoos” — in Vienna. Such displays, popular across Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries, featured individuals from colonized or non-European communities performing in simulated “native” villages, subjected to gawking crowds numbering in the tens of thousands daily.
Klimt and his colleague Franz Matsch both painted Dowuon’s portrait during this performance tour. It remains unclear who commissioned the work or why Matsch’s version may have been chosen over Klimt’s, but the lack of a signature on Klimt’s likely contributed to its later disappearance from public records.
Displacement, Ownership, and Restitution
The portrait was auctioned off from Klimt’s estate in 1923, just a few years after the artist’s death. Its story grew even murkier during World War II, when the painting’s Jewish owners fled Europe to escape Nazi persecution. Abandoned along with many other cultural treasures, it passed hands quietly and entered a private collection by the 1950s.
After being re-identified and restored, the painting was returned to the estate of the original prewar owners in a restitution agreement, a growing practice among museums and collectors seeking to return looted or displaced artworks, especially those impacted by the Holocaust.
Its reintroduction came with global media attention and a price tag reflecting its rarity: The painting was offered for €15 million ($16.2 million) at TEFAF, drawing serious interest from museums and wealthy private collectors. Though its final sale has not been confirmed, the event marks one of the most significant rediscoveries of Klimt’s oeuvre in decades.
Why It Matters: A Convergence of Art, Colonialism, and Memory
This portrait is more than just a beautiful painting — it is a portal into a deeply complex intersection of European modernism and colonial exploitation. It challenges viewers to consider the hidden stories behind iconic art and the individuals who were often marginal to historic narratives.
Dowuon’s image, now given the dignity of a museum-stage spotlight after decades in obscurity, reframes how we remember both Klimt’s legacy and the lives depicted in art — lives that were often objectified or rendered anonymous under colonial ideologies.
According to the gallery, it is extremely rare for lost paintings, not sketches or drawings, to be found from Klimt or his contemporaries. This discovery stands as a testament not just to aesthetic recovery, but to a wider societal reexamination of how museums, collectors, and historians contend with the shadows of the colonial past.
Legacy and the Road Ahead
The portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuon—resurrected