Any eroticism is an art!

A rich Jew finds out that his wife is cheating on him with an artist. He orders a portrait of his wife from a rival for a huge sum. Four years for sketches. The result: a great picture. Although love, of course, has passed.

What can be the moral of a story involving Adolf Hitler, $135 million, George W. Bush, the genius Gustav Klimt, the femme fatale Adele Bloch-Bauer, the US government and the people of Austria?

There is no morality, but there is pursuit and sacrifice, treason and revenge, love and hate. Probably, you have already guessed that we are talking about Gustav Klimt's painting "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer", or "Golden Adele", this painting is also called "The Austrian Mona Lisa".

And it all started like this.

1904. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer walked along the paved sidewalk, whistling a cheerful tune, waving his cane, sometimes stopping and politely bowing to the gentlemen he met.

He has already decided everything for himself. At first, of course, he wanted to kill her, but in Jewish families it is not customary to kill wives for treason. He could not get divorced either, it is not customary to divorce in Jewish families. Especially in such families as his and his wife Adele's — in the elite families of the Austrian Jewish diaspora. In such families, marriage unions are concluded forever. Money should go to money, capital to capital. This marriage was approved by the parents on both sides. Adele's father, Moritz Bauer, a major banker, chairman of the Association of Austrian Bankers, had been looking for worthy suitors for his daughters for a long time and chose brothers Ferdinand and Gustav Bloch, who were engaged in sugar production and had several enterprises whose shares were continuously growing.

The whole of Vienna was feasting at the wedding, and after the merger of the capitals, both families became Bloch-Bauers. And now the largest sugar grower in Europe, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, was walking along the pavement and felt branching horns growing on his head, under a luxurious satin top hat. Only lazy did not discuss the stormy romance of his wife Adele and the artist Gustav Klimt. He didn't sleep for many nights in a row, he lay and stared into the darkness until he came up with his revenge on Adelka… That's what he called her—not Adele, but Adelka.

He might not have been as educated and well-read as Adele, but he also knew something, and could have known, for example, that the ancient Indians, in order to separate lovers, chained them to each other and kept them together until they began to hate each other as much as they had recently loved.

This idea came to him in a dream. He will order him (Klimt) a portrait of Adele! And let Klimt make 100 sketches until he starts to turn away from her. He won't be able to for a long time, he needs to change models, mistresses, concubines, women around him, otherwise he suffocates. No wonder he is credited with fourteen illegitimate children. Let him paint this portrait for several years! And let Adelka see how Klimt's feelings fade away. Let him understand who she exchanged him, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, for! And they will not be able to part. A contract is a serious matter. And in the contract there is a fine exceeding the amount of the contract by dozens of times. Ferdinand can easily ruin Klimt.

He dreamed that his sugar empire fell apart into little sugar pieces and the little men dragged everything into their little burrows, and he only had a portrait of his wife. Ferdinand decided to order Klimt's portrait of Adele and name the painting "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer", thus perpetuating his surname.

Klimt, caressed by the authorities, was a very fashionable and sought-after artist, his paintings were a good investment, and Ferdinand understood this perfectly. Over the past few years, Klimt and his brother have traveled all over the country, decorating either the mineral waters pavilion in Carlsbad, the metropolitan Burgtheater, or the villa of Empress Sissi. At twenty—six Klimt received the Golden Order of Merit, at twenty-eight - the imperial prize.

Therefore, Ferdinand was very carefully preparing a contract with Klimt, his best lawyers were dealing with this issue, and now it was important that Klimt sign the papers.

When Ferdinand came home, Adele was reclining on the couch in the living room and smoking, as usual, a cigarilla in the mouthpiece. She loved apple tobacco. Her slim, flexible figure resembled a panther on vacation, so she was graceful. Fine features and dark hair were good. Adele is used to happy "doing nothing". She grew up in a very wealthy family, surrounded by an army of servants. In those days, for some reason, girls could not study at the university, but Adele's parents gave her a good home education. Adele was a very romantic lady, read classics in four languages and surprisingly combined painful air fragility with the proud arrogance of a millionaire. In her marriage, Adele entertained herself with the contents of a fashionable salon, where poets, artists and the whole color of Vienna's secular society gathered. That's where she and Gustav met.

After going into the living room, Ferdinand suggested that Adele change her clothes, since he had invited Klimt to lunch. At the mention of Klimt, Adele flushed, and it did not escape her husband's eyes. Gustav Klimt arrived without delay, taking a picture frame with him just in case. Very interesting, but he always started with a frame. His brother made a beautiful frame, and Klimt wrote his masterpiece there. The dinner passed quietly, apart from the fact that Gustav and Adele stubbornly did not want to look at each other. Ferdinand, on the contrary, was cheerful and joked incessantly.

After dinner, the three of them gathered in the living room. And there was about such a dialogue between them.

After seeing the amount of the contract, Gustav Klimt signed it without even reading it. Of course, he suspected that he was a brilliant artist, but the price Ferdinand offered him simply stunned him.

Ferdinand was pleased. The painting was finished (and many paintings remained unfinished) and fully corresponded to his plan. She and Adele hung it in the living room of their Vienna house.

It is obvious that the relationship between Klimt and Adele gradually faded away. Some time after starting work on the painting, Adele fell ill, and Klimt had to take long breaks from work.

Adele was ill and at the same time smoked a lot, most often spending the whole day without getting out of bed. God never gave her and Ferdinand children. She tried to give birth three times, and each time the children died. Adele transferred all her unspent maternal love to her sister's children, especially highlighting her niece Maria Bloch-Bauer. Maria often came to sit with her sick aunt, they discussed the latest fashion trends and styles of dresses for Maria's first ball. As well as paintings by the artist Klimt, of which there are already more than ten pieces in the house of Adele and Ferdinand.

Ferdinand devoted time to work in his sugar empire. He never told Adele that he knew about her relationship with Gustav.

Time passed, the First World War was approaching. The "golden period" in Klimt's life has ended, giving way to depressing paintings depicting death and the end of the world. Klimt endured the events taking place in the world very hard. The war had a disastrous effect on him. And at the age of 52, in 1918, Klimt suddenly died of a stroke in his workshop, in the arms of his eternal companion Emilia Flege.

Adele survived him by seven years and died in 1925, quietly passing away after meningitis. Before her death, Adele asked Ferdinand to bequeath three paintings, including The Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, to the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.

Ferdinand lived alone, his life became harder and harder, as Austria became part of Germany in 1938 and the Nazis began hunting Austrian Jews. In the same year, Ferdinand managed to escape to Switzerland, leaving all his possessions in the care of his brother's family.

The painting remained in the living room, the Second World War was approaching.

Next, the story will be about Maria Bloch-Bauer, after the marriage of Altman, a woman who took over the baton in the history of the painting "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer".

Gustav Bloch-Bauer, Ferdinand's brother, was the husband of Adele's sister. There were five children in their family, the same Maria who visited Adele during her illness was the youngest. Oddly enough, they lived very modestly, dressed simply and allowed children only the cheapest Italian ice cream. Outside of the family sugar business, Maria's father was a good musician and a friend of Rothschild, who brought a Stradivarius cello to their house, and then almost all Vienna, not indifferent to high art, gathered there.

When Maria was a teenager, she had a tender friendship with Alois Kunst from the gymnasium, which was not far from the one where she studied. She often invited him to her aunt Adele's house, and they looked at the painting together. Maria even invited Alois to her first ball. And this meant that Alois was introduced to Maria's parents and approved by them — they considered him a cultured and well-mannered young man. And Aunt Adele allowed Maria to wear her diamond necklace, in which she posed for Klimt. And Maria remembered this ball for the rest of her life. He and Alois knew that the painting had its own secret. If you look at Adele from a certain angle and make a wish, then you can tell from the corners of your lips whether Adele is smiling or frowning. If he smiles, then the wish will come true.

But Maria married someone else. Frederick Altman was an opera singer, the son of a major industrialist. Money to money, capital to capital. Apparently, his parents were wealthier. They married in 1938, on the eve of the German invasion of Austria. But, despite the arranged marriage, Maria loved her husband very much and lived with him all her life. The famous diamond necklace in which Adele Bloch-Bauer posed for Gustav Klimt, her uncle Ferdinand gave her as a wedding gift.

When the Nazis began hunting Austrian Jews, Uncle Ferdinand fled to Switzerland, and Maria's husband, Frederick, was captured and sent to the Gestapo. A little later, he ended up in a concentration camp in Dachau, where thousands of Jews turned into black smoke after handing over all their property to the German authorities. The Gestapo broke into Maria's house in In Vienna, they took all the jewelry and the Stradivarius cello, and Adele's diamond necklace was simply put in a bag (there were eyewitnesses that Heinrich Himmler's wife appeared in public several times later in this necklace). Maria did not regret anything and immediately signed all the necessary papers, in which she refused all movable and immovable property — she was ready to do anything to save her husband from death.

Maria was waiting for the "Golden Adele" to be taken away from day to day. She was hardly surprised when her school friend Alois Kunst came for the painting, accompanied by a Gestapo detachment. The Kunst collaborated with the fascists, collecting for them a collection of paintings, some of which settled in the caches and basements of the Third Reich. When she asked how he could become a traitor, he said that he could do much more for Austria that way.

Adolf Hitler had a positive attitude to the work of Gustav Klimt. It is not advertised anywhere, but it turns out that he and Klimt met when Hitler was trying to enter the Academy of Painting in Vienna. And Klimt was already an honorary professor at this academy. At that time, Hitler earned his living by drawing small pictures with views of Vienna and selling them to tourists in restaurants and inns. So, he came to Klimt to show his work and maybe take some painting lessons. And Klimt, out of the kindness of his heart, announced to Hitler that he was a genius and he did not need to take lessons. Hitler left Klimt very pleased, and told his friends that Klimt himself had recognized him. Hitler never entered the Academy of Painting, instead they took Oskar Kokoshka, a Jew by nationality. Maybe that's why Hitler once said that his hatred of Jews is purely personal.

But Klimt's paintings were not touched by this hatred, they were ordered to be protected, despite the author's Jewish origin.

When the "Golden Adele" left her home, the Fuhrer did not accept her in your collection. Adele was an outspoken Jew, and, as you know, such a picture could not possibly hang in any In the Reichstag, nor in other buildings of Nazi Germany. That is why it is worth focusing on the appearance of Adele Bloch-Bauer. The appearance of the model saved the painting from destruction. The painting disappeared. No one knows where Adele's portrait was during all the war years.

Carefully preserved... by Alois Kunst, in perfect condition, it surfaced after the end of the war and settled in the central Belvedere Museum in Vienna. And Alois Kunst became the director of this museum and continued to cherish the relic — the "Austrian Mona Lisa", his beloved Adele.

Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer died in November 1945, all alone. And none of his relatives could see him off on his last journey.

Maria and her husband were lucky, because the investigator in the Gestapo was an acquaintance of Altman, with whom Frederick was engaged in mountaineering and whom he once saved by pulling out of the abyss. They fled using forged documents. The Gestapo pursued them. Maria recalled how in the plane that took off from I arrived in London and had already taxied to the runway, suddenly the engines turned off and armed Gestapo men with machine guns entered the cabin. The Altmans sat clutching their chairs, they thought it was behind them. But no, they brought out someone else. Maria Altman carefully kept the torn stockings in which she and her husband climbed over the barbed wire. She considered them a symbol of her freedom. The Altman couple moved first to England, and then to the USA. After a while, Maria received American citizenship.

Everything was quiet until the persistent journalist Hubertus Chernin unearthed the will of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, left by him before his death in Switzerland, which canceled all his previous wills. In it, Ferdinand bequeathed all his property to his nephews — the children of his brother, Gustav Bloch-Bauer. Capital, in his opinion, had to work for the family. At that time, only Maria remained alive, and she was already over 80 years old. But Hubertus understood that this was his finest hour. Despite his count's origin, he was poor, but he liked to live in a big way. He understood that the American millionaire would pay a good sum for such information. And so it happened. Maria considered herself eternally indebted to him.

The whole of Austria was alarmed like a hornet's nest. The headlines of the Austrian newspapers screamed: "Austria is losing its relic!", "We will not give America our national treasure!". The police received threats that the painting would be destroyed, but in He won't go to America. In the end, the museum management decided to put the "Golden Adele" out of harm's way in the storerooms.

Surprisingly, George W. Bush, using some of his levers, did not give the case about the paintings a go. He absolutely did not want to spoil relations with the Austrians. Maria Altman fought for her property for seven long years. The courts were engaged in unsubscribing and coming up with reasons not to consider this case. But Maria's lawyers conducted an investigation and found out that Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer had Czech citizenship, and managed to get the court hearing transferred to the United States, since on paper the US citizen asked to legalize the will of a Czech citizen. "What does Austria have to do with it?" — they asked.

And Austria had nothing to do with it. And by the decision of the US Supreme Court, Austria was obliged to return five paintings by Gustav Klimt, including the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, to the rightful heiress — Maria Altman.

Maria was happy and did not insist that the paintings leave Austria. She asked to be paid their market value. The price for all five paintings was set at $ 155 million. This amount was unaffordable for the Austrian Ministry of Culture.

The whole of Austria came to the defense of the "Golden Adele". She took unprecedented measures in the history of the state to save the national treasure. Negotiations were held with banks on a loan to buy paintings. In addition, the government of the country appealed to the population with a request for help, intending to issue "Klimt bonds". The public has announced a fundraising subscription. Donations began to arrive, and not only from Austrians. The Austrian government has almost collected the required amount.

The hype raised around the paintings inflated their market value, and Maria decided to raise the price to $ 300 million. Maria Altman had a rare chance to enter the history of Austria by showing nobility and leaving Klimt's paintings in his homeland. Of course, not gratuitously, and the initial estimate of $155 million was considered in Austria as a fair compensation.

Thousands of Vienna residents came to hold the Golden Adele, people came from all over Austria. Crowds of people lined the streets, along which relics were taken out in armored cars. Some were crying. It's no joke, the "Portrait of Adele" has been a symbol of Austria for almost 100 years.

Some time later, for $ 135 million, Maria Altman sold the Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer to Ronald Lauder, the owner of the Estee Lauder perfume concern. Ronald Lauder built a new house for the "Golden Adele", which was called the "museum of Austrian and German Art". And now the painting is there in complete safety.

Journalist Hubertus Chernin was never able to use the money received from Maria Altman, because he died four months after the removal of Klimt's paintings. The official version of the police is a heart attack.

Maria Altman died in 2011 at the age of 94.

Just imagine, this elderly woman saw a real live Adele Bloch-Bauer, her husband Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer. However, she was only two years old when Klimt died. But looking at it, you feel the full reality of the events that happened — the incredible story of the great picture.

"Golden Adele" is very popular in the world.

They write poems to her:

It is replicated as best they can.

All the participants of the events have gone to another world, and the "Golden Adele" is alive and will live for centuries, as Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer wanted.