Europe

Austrian museum reaches settlement over Nazi-looted art

Two works by painter Egon Schiele to be returned to heir of Jewish Holocaust victim

Austrian culture minister Josef Ostermayer and Elisabeth Leopold, widow of art collector and creator of Austria’s Leopold Museum Rudolf Leopold, pose with drawings by Austrian painter Egon Schiele at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, April 7th, 2016. The museum is to return the aquarelles photographed to a New York-based heiress of Viennese art collector Karl Maylaender, who died in the Holocaust. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP
Austrian culture minister Josef Ostermayer and Elisabeth Leopold, widow of art collector and creator of Austria’s Leopold Museum Rudolf Leopold, pose with drawings by Austrian painter Egon Schiele at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, April 7th, 2016. The museum is to return the aquarelles photographed to a New York-based heiress of Viennese art collector Karl Maylaender, who died in the Holocaust. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP
Thu Apr 07 2016 - 21:20

Vienna's Leopold Museum said on Thursday it had reached a settlement over five Nazi-looted works of art in its collection that will return two of them to the heir of their original Jewish owner, a victim of the Holocaust.

The five pieces, all by Austrian painter Egon Schiele, had been owned by Viennese businessman Karl Maylaender, who died after being deported to a labour camp during the second World War.

The museum will return two watercolours, including a self-portrait of Schiele, to Mr Maylaender’s 95-year-old heiress.

The remaining three pieces will stay at the museum, which owns the world’s largest Schiele collection.

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"This is a happy day," Austria's culture minister Josef Ostermayer said at a news conference. The long-running discussion had cast a shadow over the museum and now a "Solomonic solution" had been found, he said.

Under Adolf Hitler, the Nazis forced Jewish artists and collectors to sell or give away their works, and many pieces were confiscated outright.

A law Austria introduced in 1998 directed that its museums return the looted art, and major works have been given back to descendants of the former owners.

Privately funded

However, the Leopold Museum - privately funded and therefore not obliged to follow the law - would have preferred to keep all five drawings.

In 2011, it sold one Schiele painting so it could pay $19 million to the heirs of a Jewish art dealer and - as part of the deal - keep another painting.

The New York-based heiress with whom the museum reached Thursday’s agreement, who is said to wish to remain anonymous, had turned down an offer of money and insisted on getting the artwork back.

The Austrian Jewish community, which backed the heiress's position, said the now-found agreement was a good solution. "I am happy that the heiress can still enjoy the drawings," community representative Erika Jakubovits said.

Elisabeth Leopold, widow of the museum's late founder, Rudolf Leopold, who bought the pieces in 1960 from a Maylaender friend, said: "I have made a huge sacrifice in memory of Karl Maylaender."