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Ernestine Klein (1887 - 1973 née Kreisler) was an Austrian Jewish art collector whose art collection was looted by the Nazis.
Klein was born on 24 Février 1887 in Vienna into a Jewish family. She supported the arts and continued her patronage after she married Felix Klein, a wine wholesaler. They owned businesses and property in Vienna and Budapest.
Close to Gustav Klimt, after Klimt's death in 1918 the Klein couple converted the artist’s former studio into a villa which later became known as the Villa Klimt.
Artworks in Klein's collection included Egon Schiele's Portrait of Gerti Schiele, now at the MoMa, and Klimt’s Portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona . Klein had loaned Klimt's portrait of the Prince in 1928 at a memorial exhibition for the artist at the Vienna Secession. After it was looted by the Nazis it disappeared, until it suddenly resurfaced in 2023 offered for sale at the TEFAF to the astonishment of art professionals. How it came there from Austria and Hungary was the object of a highly publicized criminal investigation.
After the Anschluss of Austria with Nazi Germany in 1938, the couple as persecuted due to their Jewish heritage and in 1939 their property in Vienna was Aryanized (forcibly transfered to non Jews). The Kleins fled Austria and survived in hiding in Monaco.
After the defeat of the Nazis, Ernestine returned to find their valuable art collection had been looted. They tried unsuccessfully to find it. They also attempted to recover their home, the Klimt Villa.
Klimt Villa was restituted to Klein who sold it back to the Austrian authorities in 1957.
Before fleeing, Klein entrusted a friend with safekeeping Klimt’s Portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona but instead of returning the painting the friend sold it and its whereabouts were unknown until it appeared at the Wienerroither & Kohlbacher Gallery at TEFAF "following a restitution settlement with Ernestine Klein’s heirs".
The painting was one of the most talked-about items at the fair and attracted international media attention.
In July, Hungary initiated criminal proceedings against the painting's former owner. In a statement, Janos Lazar, a powerful minister in the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, vowed to "file a formal complaint, initiate the amendment of the relevant legislation and propose the classification of the painting as protected."
