VIENNA (AP) — For more than a century, only conservators and experts could catch a close-up glimpse of early works by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt in Vienna, but Klimt fans are now getting that opportunity on daily guided tours high up on scaffolding.
The 10 oil paintings, which are on the 18-meter-high (60-foot-high) ceilings of the renowned Burgtheater in Austria’s capital, are being restored because of water damage.
“The special thing about Klimt for me at least is that we only know about his later works,” said Hannes Höllinger, 60, who went on one of the recent Klimt tours and said it “was very interesting to see that already at age 24 he made these very beautiful paintings which I myself had not seen before.”
Klimt, famed for his bold, daring art nouveau paintings, was a key figure in artistic modernism at the start of the 20th century. His work has fetched some of the highest prices for any artist. Among his most famous paintings is “The Kiss” from 1907-1908, which shows a couple in a passionate embrace adorned with elaborate patterns and gold. The painting is on display at Vienna's Belvedere Museum.
“We were allowed to invest several hundred thousand euros to let Gustav Klimt shine in his original splendor again,” Burgtheater commercial director Robert Beutler told The Associated Press. “Everything gets cleaned by hand with very fine cotton swabs and condensed water.”
The biggest Klimt painting is about 35 square meters (375 square feet), “so you can imagine how long that takes when you remove dust and grime piece by piece and layer by layer,” Beutler said.
Klimt painted the art at the theater from 1886-1888, together with his brother Ernst and Austrian painter Franz Matsch. At age 24, it was Klimt's first big commission.
Conservator Thomas Mahr, who is responsible for restoring the stucco surrounding Klimt’s early work, said the artists' pitch at the time was “'we are young, we are fast, and provide great work at low cost' — and that’s how they got into business."
The paintings depict different scenes from theater history. One of the biggest works displays a scene from 16th-century London, in which Queen Elizabeth I is shown watching a staging of “Romeo and Juliet” at the Globe Theatre. Right behind the queen, Klimt and his two fellow artists look on. It is Klimt's only known self-portrait.
Every day, hundreds of art lovers climb the scaffolding as part of guided tours to view Klimt’s work up close. Susanne Höllinger, who took the tour with her husband Hannes, said the early paintings already offer an idea of what Klimt's most famous later paintings would look like.
She especially enjoyed looking at the many details of the paintings that aren't visible from the floor of the theater such as finely painted, small figures or the cigarette in the fingers of Klimt’s chain-smoking brother Ernst.
“To be so close to these freshly renovated paintings — just a unique experience,” Höllinger exclaimed.
The special guided tours about Klimt's ceiling art will continue until August, after which the scaffolding will be removed. General admission tickets are available on the theater's website for 25 euros ($29).
People attend a guided tour of the restoration of Gustav Klimt's ceiling paintings at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Philipp-Moritz Jenne)
A man takes a picture with his mobile phone during a guided tour of the restoration of Gustav Klimt's ceiling paintings at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Philipp-Moritz Jenne)
People look at a restored painting of Gustav Klimt during a guided tour of the restoration of the ceiling paintings at the Burgtheater in Vienna, Austria, Monday, April 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Philipp-Moritz Jenne)
ZUG, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 2026--
AMINA Bank AG ("AMINA"), a Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA)-regulated crypto bank with global reach, today becomes the first bank to support Canton Coin (CC), the native token of Canton Network, offering custody and trading services to its clients. Canton Network is a public, privacy-preserving blockchain built for capital markets.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260505860056/en/
Canton has gained significant institutional momentum in recent months, attracting TradFi and DeFi organizations, including the DTCC, Visa, and BitGo, that are building next-generation settlement, tokenisation, custody, and collateral workflows on the network. Canton is also developing an on-chain capital markets ecosystem that encompasses repo, lending, and wrapped asset flows — all under compliance and settlement constraints designed for regulated participants.
AMINA will help reduce friction for professional investors, Super Validators, and institutions running tokenisation and settlement workflows on Canton. Through a single FINMA-regulated institution, AMINA clients can custody and trade Canton Coin with the governance they expect from an institutional banking partner.
Myles Harrison, Chief Product Officer at AMINA, said: “Canton Network represents something we are seeing more broadly in digital assets: infrastructure that has been purpose-built for regulated institutions, not retrofitted. By making Canton Coin available for custody and trading, AMINA is providing clients, whether they are Super Validators or investors seeking exposure to Canton Network's growth, with the regulated access they need to engage with this ecosystem. Making Canton Coin available is a deliberate step to ensure our clients have regulated access to the infrastructure underpinning institutional finance’s next chapter.”
Viv Diwakar, Head of the Canton Foundation, said: “Canton Network was designed to meet the needs of regulated financial institutions — privacy, compliance, and settlement finality built into the architecture. AMINA shares that philosophy. For Canton Network participants who need a compliant, supervised home for their Canton Coin holdings, AMINA provides that with the credibility and regulatory standing that the ecosystem demands.”
AMINA has established a proven track record of being first to bring strategically significant cryptocurrencies to its professional investor and institutional client base. The bank was the first globally to support Ripple USD (RLUSD) and the first to offer SUI trading and custody, both of which have since seen growing institutional uptake. As Canton Network's ecosystem continues to develop, AMINA intends to deepen its participation in the network during the period ahead.
Disclaimer: This is a marketing communication made to you by AMINA Bank AG (“AMINA”), a Swiss bank and securities dealer with office and legal domicile at Kolinplatz 15, 6300 Zug, Switzerland, authorized and regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”). AMINA is not licensed as a bank in any other jurisdiction. This marketing communication is prepared solely for information and marketing purposes and is intended to be marketing material within the meaning of Article 68 of the Swiss Financial Services Act (FinSA); it is an advertisement; it is not a solicitation, recommendation, advice or an offer or intention to make an offer to buy or sell any financial instrument or to participate in any particular investment strategy. This marketing communication is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer or solicitation to the public in any jurisdiction where AMINA is not authorised to acquire, dispose of or engage in any product. Certain products and services may not be available to all clients based on legal and regulatory considerations.
About AMINA — Crypto. Banking. Simplified.
Founded in April 2018 and established in Zug (Switzerland), AMINA Bank AG is a pioneer in the crypto banking industry. In August 2019, AMINA Bank AG received the Swiss Banking and Securities Dealer License from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”). In February 2022, AMINA Bank AG, Abu Dhabi Global Markets (“ADGM”) Branch received Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (“FSRA”) of ADGM. In November 2023, AMINA (Hong Kong) Limited received its Type 1 (Dealing in Securities), Type 4 (Advising on Securities) and Type 9 (Asset Management) licenses from the Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”). In October 2025, the firm’s Type 1 license was further approved for uplift to include digital asset dealing services for Professional Investors under Hong Kong’s digital asset regulatory framework. In October 2025, AMINA (Austria) AG (“AMINA EU”) received its CASP license from Austria’s Financial Market Authority (“FMA”) under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCAR) framework.
CVVC Global Report and CB Insights named AMINA as one of the Top 50 Companies within the blockchain ecosystem. In 2023, AMINA won the European WealthBriefing Award in the Digital Assets Solution, Fund Manager category. AMINA was most recently recognised as Institutional Digital Asset Innovation of the Year at the Hedgeweek® Global Digital Assets Awards 2025.
To learn more about AMINA, visit www.aminagroup.com
About Canton Network
Canton is the only public, permissionless blockchain purpose-built for institutional finance–uniquely combining privacy, compliance, and scalability. With participation from leading global financial institutions and network governance independently facilitated by the Canton Foundation, Canton enables real-time, secure synchronization and settlement across multiple asset classes on a shared, interoperable infrastructure. The open-sourced network is powered by its native token, Canton Coin, and supports decentralized governance and collaborative application development. It’s the proven link between the promise of blockchain and the power of global finance, making finance flow the way it should. Learn more at: canton.network
AMINA Becomes First Bank to Support Canton Coin Trading and Custody
