Court Case over Egon Schiele's Wife
June 4 2024
Picture: democratandchronicle.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A court case surrounding the ownership and potential restitution of Egon Schiele's Portrait of the Artist's Wife has just ended with closing statements in Rochester, NY. The story is a long and winding one, but there are claims from the heirs of Heinrich Rieger (Schiele's dentist) and the heirs of the Jewish art collector and textile merchant Karl Mayländer over the war-time ownership of the work. The work is currently owned by The Robert Owen Lehman Foundation who had planned to sell it at Christie's, until questions about earlier provenance were raised. The article above has the full story, along with some rather interesting court room photographs of various attorneys standing with various books and easels.
