Aranka Pulitzer came from a wealthy Austro-Hungarian family. In November 1882, she married the timber industrialist Alexander Munk in Budapest, with whom she had three daughters: Lili (1884–1885), Maria (1887–1911) and Lola Christine (1900–1942). In 1920, Lola Munk married the bookseller Hans Sachsel (1893–1950), from whom she divorced in 1925; her second marriage was to Eduard Kraus, who died in 1936. The family lived in a villa at 52 Sternwartestraße, in Vienna’s 18th district. Her eldest daughter, Maria (Ria) Munk, committed suicide in 1911 at the age of just 24. In his diary, Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931) made a cryptic note in this context: “because of Hans [sic] H. Ewers”, which could suggest a possible unhappy love affair with the writer Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871–1943). The exact circumstances, however, remain unclear. Aranka and Alexander Munk divorced before the Rabbinate and the District Court in 1913. From then on, Aranka Munk lived in a flat at 10/23 Köstlergasse, in Vienna’s 6th district. In 1912, Gustav Klimt had been commissioned to paint the posthumous portrait of their daughter, Ria Munk on her deathbed; however, Aranka Munk gave this to the sculptor Josef Heu (1876–1952) in 1914. Klimt produced further portraits of Ria Munk, which he painted over after they failed to meet with the approval of the client, Aranka Munk (The Dancer, 1916/1918; Portrait of a Lady in White, 1917/18). The portrait Ria Munk III remained unfinished due to Gustav Klimt’s death in 1918 and adorned a wall of Aranka Munk’s summer retreat, acquired in 1914, in Bad Aussee at Marktleithe 78 , where several relatives already owned properties.

Following the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, Aranka Munk and her daughter Lola were among those who were persecuted. In a letter written in 1939, Aranka asked her caretaker in Aussee to take special care of the picture of “poor Mitzerl”. In October 1941, Aranka Munk and Lola Kraus were deported from Vienna to Łódź and murdered in Łódź and Chelmno, respectively, shortly afterwards. According to a decision by the Gestapo headquarters in Linz, the villa in Aussee was confiscated on 23 November 1938 in favour of the State of Austria and was ultimately sold by the Chief Finance Commissioner of Vienna to a “resettled couple” named Ruth and Hermann Kobbe from Buchenland (Bukovina) in 1942. The contents of the Aranka Munk villa in Bad Aussee were systematically distributed by Gottfried Reimer (1911–1992), deputy head of the “Sonderauftrag Linz”, following the expropriation: As early as February 1942, ethnographic objects worth RM 200– including Gmunder ceramic jugs, a painted peasant’s bed and copper and brass tableware – were transferred to the Heimathaus Bad Aussee. Further items with a total value of around RM 5,500 were allocated to the Reich Finance Ministry’s “Alpenhof” convalescent home in accordance with a decree. A particularly valuable Aubusson carpet, estimated by the Aussee carpenter Hugo Petter to be worth RM 25,000, was earmarked for the so-called “Sonderauftrag Linz” in September 1943. The remaining paintings and works of art were allocated to the Reichsgau Oberdonau (Upper Danube); their whereabouts remain unknown to this day. The objects handed over to the Heimathaus Bad Aussee – including the Aubusson carpet kept there – were stored in the Altaussee mine in 1944. In connection with the valuation of the house to be sold, Gauconservator Franz Juraschek inspected the villa and, in July 1942, informed Justus Schmidt of the Gaumuseum in Linz, amongst other things, of the existence of an unfinished “Portrait of a Lady” by Gustav Klimt. Herbert Seiberl, head of the Institute for Monument Preservation, was also aware of the portrait’s existence by November 1942 at the latest. Wolfgang Gurlitt, who traded in ‘degenerate’ art and expropriated works and lived in Aranka Munk’s neighbourhood during the Nazi era, acquired the painting by means that remain unclear to this day.

In 1946, Gurlitt took over as director of the Neue Galerie in the city of Linz, now the Lentos Art Museum. In 1948, despite serious reservations on the part of the Austrian authorities, he concluded a loan agreement with the city of Linz concerning his art collection. The restitution proceedings concerning the villa ended in March 1950 with the conclusion of an out-of-court settlement between the heirs of Aranka Munk and Hermann and Ruth Maria Kobbe. The items from the family home, which had been stored in Altaussee in 1944, were returned to the heirs in 1952, who had them auctioned at the Dorotheum. In 1953, following negotiations in which Justus Schmidt was involved, numerous works from the Gurlitt Collection were purchased, and in 1956 the Neue Galerie acquired the Klimt painting Portrait of Ria Munk. At the same time, the identity of the subject was concealed and the painting was categorically referred to as a Portrait of a lady, although it was known that it had originated from Jewish ownership. For a long time, the painting was regarded as one of the museum’s major works. Following years of research, the City of Linz returned the painting to the community of heirs of Aranka Munk in the summer of 2009, on the basis of a unanimous decision by the City of Linz’s Administrative Committee. On 23 June 2010, Christie’s London auctioned the painting for £18.8 million as part of its Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale.