Portrait Of A Lady

Images of the gorgeous mosaic and gold-leaf paintings of Vienna's native son Gustav Klimt have long graced everything in Austria from chocolate wrappings to subway walls. The real things, so emblematic of Vienna's embrace of early 20th century Art Nouveau, attract tens of thousands of art lovers to the city each year. So it was with genuine dismay that Austrians woke one morning last week to discover that five of the artist's best-known works housed in the Belvedere Palace — including the famous golden portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the painting's original owner — were suddenly no longer theirs. After a seven-year...