Nazi-looted Art Hits The Courts

Judgment on a long-running lawsuit in New York which helped launch a world outcry over Nazi-looted art at museums and prompted many institutions to begin examining their collections for history of Nazi theft, has been postponed to let the US government review new evidence. On 3 June the schedule was suspended on a case brought by the US government in 1999 to seek confiscation of Egon Schiele's Portrait of Wally from the Leopold Museum in Vienna, under the US National Stolen Property Act.
The US says the Leopold knew that the art was stolen by a Nazi in 1939 from its Jewish owner, Lea Bondi. The case, which the parties had asked the court to resolve without a trial, is before the federal district court in Manhattan.
In October 1997, the Leopold sent over 150 works by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele on an ill-fated journey to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, exposing the collection, built by the museum's museological director Rudolph Leopold, to the New York public and US courts. Soon after the Schiele show opened, allegations were voiced linking two works to Nazi looting. After a subpoena by the New York district attorney failed to detain the two works for a stolen property investigation, the US government commenced the current confiscation suit for Wally in 1999. the work is currently being held by the US government.

The lawsuits evoked criticism at the time that the government was interfering with informational art loans, but are now often cited as having helped urge museums to re-examine the Nazi-era history of their art.

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