A New York judge has ruled the Art Institute of Chicago must surrender a 1916 drawing stolen from a Jewish art collector by Nazis in the Holocaust.
A pencil and watercolor piece titled “Russian War Prisoner,” by Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele, was once owned by Jewish art collector Fritz Grünbaum, who died in the Dachau concentration camp in 1941.
The Art Institute purchased the piece in 1966.
New York investigators issued warrants two years ago to seize the piece, along with other artworks at other museums, because they said they had been stolen by the Nazis.
Other pieces of Schiele’s art from Grünbaum’s collection were seized from the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburg and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio.
The Art Institute disputed their evidence, but the New York Times now reports a judge has agreed the artwork could be considered stolen, so the Art Institute must give it up.
contributed to this report.
