A painting by renowned Austrian Biedermeier artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, recently returned to the heirs of a Jewish entrepreneur after decades of Nazi-looted art recovery efforts, has been sold for €520,000 at Vienna's prestigious Dorotheum auction house. The genre painting titled "Hansl's erste Ausfahrt" (Hansl's First Outing), created in 1858, was offered during the Classic Week auction on Wednesday evening with an estimated value between €400,000 and €600,000.

The artwork originally belonged to Grete Klein, a Jewish businesswoman from Vienna who displayed the painting in an exhibition at the Salzburg Galerie Welz during the summer of 1937. However, the painting's fate took a dark turn during the Nazi regime's systematic persecution of Jewish citizens and confiscation of their property.

According to the Dorotheum's catalog entry, Klein was forced to submit a mandatory asset declaration required by the Nazi regime in July 1938, just shortly after exhibiting her painting. She was subsequently dispossessed of her villa in Mödling, and the painting likely passed through art dealer Maria Almas Dietrich before being registered under inventory number 205 in Munich's Führerbau in 1938. From there, the artwork was transported in September 1944 as part of the 11th salvage transport to the Altaussee salt mine, where Nazi officials had been storing looted art treasures.

The painting's journey continued after the war when it was recovered in July 1945 by American military personnel and US soldiers known as the "Monuments Men" - the Allied unit dedicated to protecting and recovering cultural artifacts during and after World War II. These specialists transferred the artwork to the Central Collection Point in Munich, which served as a hub for processing recovered Nazi-looted art.

After appearing once more in a Salzburg exhibition, the painting was transferred to the ownership of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1960. The German government subsequently loaned the work to various museums, with its most recent display at the Museum Wiesbaden - an institution that recently made headlines due to an unexpected surge of Taylor Swift fans visiting the museum. The painting was finally restituted to Grete Klein's heirs only this past summer in 2025, marking the end of an 87-year journey through wartime confiscation and post-war recovery efforts.

The successful auction of Waldmüller's work was part of a broader strong performance for 19th-century paintings at the Dorotheum. Polish artists proved particularly popular among bidders, according to the auction house's announcement. Józef von Brandt's Cossack scene "Crossing the Don" significantly exceeded its estimated value of €150,000 to €220,000, ultimately selling for €331,500. Similarly, Alfred von Wierusz-Kowalski's "Fox Hunt" achieved approximately €106,000, far surpassing its estimated range of €40,000 to €60,000.

Another standout lot was "Portrait of a Lady in a Red Dress with a Manila Shawl (Una Manola)" by Juan Luna y Novicio, considered the most significant Philippine artist of the 19th century. This work dramatically exceeded expectations, selling for €273,000 against an estimate of €100,000 to €150,000, demonstrating the international appeal and growing market recognition for Southeast Asian art from this period.

The Dorotheum's auction week continues with Thursday's sale of Old Master paintings, maintaining the momentum of what has proven to be a successful series of auctions featuring European art from various historical periods. The strong results reflect both the enduring appeal of 19th-century European painting and the particular significance that collectors place on works with documented provenance and restitution histories.