Austria’s Leopold Museum Settles on Nazi-Looted Schiele Painting

Vienna’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.

After a $5 million settlement with Steiner’s granddaughter last year, the museum settled with the claimants for the remaining two-thirds of the painting, Leopold Museum said in a statement today.

The Leopold Foundation will finance the settlement by selling paintings, Peter Weinhaeupl, the managing director of the museum, told Austria Press Agency.

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To contact the reporter on this story: Zoe Schneeweiss in Vienna at zschneeweiss@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Tirone at jtirone@bloomberg.net

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"Houses by the Sea"

Leopold Museum via Bloomberg

"Houses by the Sea" by Egon Schiele. Vienna’s Leopold Museum agreed to pay $5 million to the granddaughter of Jenny Steiner to keep the work in its collection.

"Houses by the Sea" by Egon Schiele. Vienna’s Leopold Museum agreed to pay $5 million to the granddaughter of Jenny Steiner to keep the work in its collection. Source: Leopold Museum via Bloomberg