Maria Altmann was an Austrian-American Jewish refugee from Austria, who fled her home country after it was annexed to the Third Reich. She is noted for her ultimately successful legal campaign to reclaim from the Government of Austria five family-owned paintings by the artist Gustav Klimt that were stolen by the Nazis during World War II.

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism. Amongst his figurative works, which include allegories and portraits, he painted landscapes. Among the artists of the Vienna Secession, Klimt was the most influenced by Japanese art and its methods.