June 19, 2012
Leopold Museum settlement to allow them to keep Nazi looted Schiele painting
Vienna’s Leopold Museum have settled with the claimants of Jenny Steiner to allow them to keep a painting by Egon Schiele. Previous court rulings had instructed the museum to return the painting, which had been looted by the Nazis. It is unclear what the cost of the settlement was for the museum.
To an extent, cases such as this point that there is more than one way to settling restitution cases – and that a case does not necessarily open the floodgates for the emptying of museums. In many cases, the original owners either don’t want, or don’t have the facilities to look after the artfacts in question, but are looking for some sort of compensation for its loss, or in some cases merely an acknowledgement that they are the legitimate owners of it.
From:
Bloomberg News
Austria’s Leopold Museum Settles on Nazi-Looted Schiele Painting
By Zoe Schneeweiss – Jun 14, 2012 11:00 AM GMTVienna’s Leopold Museum agreed to settle with the remaining claimants of Jenny Steiner to keep in its collection Egon Schiele’s “Houses by the Sea,” that was stolen by the Nazis.
The 1914 painting belonged to Steiner until she fled Austria in 1938, shortly after the Nazis marched into Vienna. She escaped to Paris and later emigrated to the U.S. with her two daughters. The painting was seized and sold by the Nazis, then later auctioned. Rudolf Leopold, the founder of the Leopold Museum, acquired it in 1955.
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