Paintings seized by Nazis to return to owners
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Paintings seized by Nazis to return to owners
Austrian court rules Gustav Klimt
paintings worth an estimated 360
million euros that were confiscated
by Nazis to be returned to their
Jewish owners
Helen Hazan
Six paintings by Austrian artist
Gustav Klimt that were confiscated
by the Nazis are expected to be
returned to their Jewish owners,
Israel's leading newspaper
Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Tuesday.
Klimt was an acquaintance of
the family of prominent Jewish
industrialist Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer,
specifically with the tycoon's wife Adele.
Klimt's two portraits of Adele are
considered to be his most famous
paintings.
Bloch-Bauer and his wife
acquired six of Klimt's paintings,
some of which were offered to them
as a gift by the artist.
Adele died in 1925,
and according to her will the
paintings were to be transferred
to the Austrian government;
but World War two disrupted her plans,
and when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938,
Ferdinand fled to Switzerland and the
paintings were confiscated.
With the war's conclusion the paintings
were finally transferred to the Austrian
government, which, in turn,
handed hem over to the Belvedere Museum.
Following Bloch-Bauer's death,
his beneficiaries worked toward
retrieving the paintings,
and last Monday,
after six years of deliberations,
an Austrian court ruled that the
paintings are to be transferred
to Bloch-Bauer's cousin,
Maria Altman,
an 89-year-old Jewish
woman who resides in
Los Angeles.
The Austrian museum's director
has already asked his government
to purchase the paintings from Altman,
but this scenario is highly doubtful,
as the paintings are worth an estimated
360 million euros.
(01.17.06, 13:56)