Heirs of Jews Who Fled the Nazis Return Art to Heirs Whose Family Could Not

“Seated Nude Woman,” a drawing by the Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele, was returned on Friday to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish art collector and Viennese cabaret performer who was killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The drawing had been held by the heirs of a Jewish couple who fled the Nazis just before World War II and later unknowingly bought the work, which investigators for the Manhattan district attorney’s office say were among dozens looted from Grünbaum by the Third Reich.

The return took place at the district attorney’s office in Manhattan. The grandchildren of the couple, Ernst and Helene Papanek, said in a statement that relinquishing the work was “the right thing to do” in the face of evidence it had been looted.

Since September, five museums and four private owners have handed back 11 works once owned by Grünbaum in what has become the largest Holocaust art restitution case in the United States.

One museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, has challenged an order from investigators to turn over a 12th Schiele, “Russian War Prisoner,” that was once owned by Grünbaum, who died in a concentration camp in 1941. The museum has contested the evidence cited by investigators and a legal battle over the work is proceeding in New York State Supreme Court.

A Grünbaum descendant, Timothy Reif, responded to Friday’s return in a statement that said the recovery of the work sends a message “that crime does not pay and that the law enforcement community in New York has not forgotten the dark lessons of World War II.”