A New York judge has ordered the Art Institute of Chicago to return Egon Schiele's 1916 drawing to the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, an Austrian Jewish art collector persecuted during the Holocaust. The ruling, issued by Judge Althea Drysdale, determined that the work was looted by the Nazis and that the museum failed to properly scrutinize its provenance, relying on discredited records from Swiss dealer Eberhard Kornfeld. The drawing had been in the museum's collection since 1966 and was seized in 2023; the museum plans to appeal.
The decision is a significant milestone in the long-running restitution efforts by Grünbaum's heirs, who have pursued multiple claims for artworks from his collection. It underscores the growing legal and ethical pressure on major museums to rigorously investigate the origins of works acquired during and after the Nazi era, and it highlights the role of New York courts in adjudicating Holocaust-era restitution cases, even when the objects are held by out-of-state institutions.