The Art Institute of Chicago is appealing a New York court order to return Egon Schiele's drawing *Russian War Prisoner* (1916) to the heirs of its original owner, Fritz Grünbaum, a Jewish art collector who died in a Nazi concentration camp. The museum secured a temporary stay while it pursues the appeal, following an April ruling by Justice Althea Drysdale that found credible evidence the 1956 sale to Swiss dealer Eberhard Kornfeld was illegitimate. The drawing was seized from the museum in September 2023 and remains off view.
This case is part of a broader push by the Manhattan District Attorney's office to return Nazi-looted artworks to Grünbaum's heirs, who have already recovered several Schiele works from major U.S. institutions including MoMA, the Morgan Library, and the Carnegie Museums. The outcome could set a significant precedent for how U.S. courts handle restitution claims for art sold under duress during the Holocaust, particularly when statute of limitations issues arise and provenance documentation is contested.