The Art Institute of Chicago contends that decades of investigation and litigation have concluded that a watercolor it now holds was never stolen by the Nazis from a cabaret performer who later died in a concentration camp - but rather was legally sold by the man's heirs.
Art by Egon Schiele believed to be stolen during the Holocaust from a Jewish collector were seized from museums including the Art Institute of ChicagoThe Art Institute of Chicago contends that decades of investigation and litigation have concluded that a watercolor it now holds was never stolen by the Nazis from a cabaret performer who later died in a concentration camp - but rather was legally sold by the man's heirs.
The museum defended its ownership in the latest filing, saying that the district attorney's "theory" that the work is stolen property is "factually unsupported and wrong." The Art Institute contends Grünbaum's sister-in-law, Mathilde Lukacs, inherited "Russian War Prisoner" and subsequently sold it along with other of his works in 1956 to Swiss art dealer Eberhard Kornfeld.
Grünbaum's wife, Elisabeth, was forced to register her and her husbands assets, including his art collection, in 1938 under Nazi law after Grünbaum was arrested. In September of that year, the collection landed in storage at the Schenker and Co. warehouse in Vienna. "The asset registration procedure was neither an act of physical seizure and confiscation nor its technical equivalent. ... there are no records to support the conclusion that such a seizure or confiscation happened here," the filing states.
Argues It Legally Owns Watercolor 'No Evidence' It Was 'Ever Physically Seized Or L ' By Nazis
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