{"id":2130,"date":"2024-05-13T21:43:14","date_gmt":"2024-05-13T13:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/?p=2130"},"modified":"2024-05-13T21:43:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-13T13:43:14","slug":"ownership-of-egon-schiele-drawing-lost-during-holocaust-to-be-decided-by-new-york-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/ownership-of-egon-schiele-drawing-lost-during-holocaust-to-be-decided-by-new-york-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Ownership of Egon Schiele Drawing Lost During Holocaust to Be Decided by New York Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 1917 drawing by\u00a0Egon Schiele<\/a>\u00a0is at the center of a restitution case that will soon head to court in New York.<\/p>\n

The work in question,\u00a0Portrait of the Artist\u2019s Wife<\/em>\u00a0(1917), depicts Edith Schiele with her hands folded in her lap. The drawing was made a year before both Edith and the artist, both at 28 years old, during the 1918 influenza epidemic.\u00a0Portrait of the Artist\u2019s Wife<\/em>\u00a0is estimated to be worth several million dollars.<\/p>\n

The heirs of two Jewish collectors, Karl Mayl\u00e4nder and Heinrich Rieger, have both claimed ownership of the work. Mayl\u00e4nder was a textile merchant; Schiele made at least two portraits of him. Rieger was Schiele\u2019s dentist. Both were killed by the Nazis during World War II, and their respective heirs both claim their relatives lost the work during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

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Philanthropist and art collector Robert Owen Lehman Sr., known for heading the\u00a0Lehman Brothers<\/a>\u00a0investment firm through the Great Depression, bought\u00a0Portrait of the Artist\u2019s Wife<\/em>\u00a0from the London gallery Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd. for \u00a32,000 ($5,600) in 1964. He then gifted the piece to his son, the award-winning documentary filmmaker Robert Owen \u201cRobin\u201d Lehman Jr., as a Christmas present. It remained with him until 1972, when Lehman Jr. briefly lost the work during his divorce; when his ex-wife died in 2013, the work was recovered from under her bed. In 2016, Lehman Jr. gifted the work to the Robert Owen Lehman Jr. Foundation.<\/p>\n

The trial over the work\u2019s ownership began in Rochester, New York, on Tuesday, with testimony expected to last until the end of May. In his ruling, State Supreme Court judge Daniel J. Doyle will consider circumstantial evidence, decades-old records, and a spotty provenance. Expert witnesses are expected to weigh in, with each party presenting evidence on their behalf.<\/p>\n

Lehman Jr. testified not only to his frustration over the eight-year-long battle but also claimed that he had been open to resolving the ownership claim initially with the Mayl\u00e4nders. However, when a second claim emerged, Lehman said in court, \u201cI came to the conclusion that possibly two claims can\u2019t be correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work\u2019s whereabouts between 1930 through 1964 are disputed among the heirs. Lehman Jr.<\/a> has said there are no surviving records, and his foundation claims that the drawing was not considered lost because it was not listed in a stolen or looted works database. The heirs, however, claim to have documents demonstrating their relatives\u2019 ownership. They believe the foundation did not adequately investigate the provenance.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until the foundation had planned to sell the work that these questions of ownership came to the forefront. After the foundation consigned the work with Christie\u2019s, the auction house reviewed its database, where it found potential connections to Mayl\u00e4nder and Rieger. Christie\u2019s subsequently contacted the heirs\u2019 representatives; the auction house continues to hold the work.<\/p>\n

Mayl\u00e4nder was deported to the Lodz ghetto in Poland in 1941 and was later killed. An acquaintance, Etelka Hofmann<\/a>, took possession of Mayl\u00e4nder\u2019s artworks after the war and later sold some of the pieces to a collector in 1960, including a Schiele work identified in a signed contract by the collector and Hofmann as \u201cEdith Schiele, seated, watercolored drawing, signed and dated 1917.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rieger died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. Prior to his death, Rieger collected 120 to 150 of Schiele\u2019s watercolors.<\/p>\n

The Lehman foundation argues that neither Mayl\u00e4nder nor Rieger owned the portrait of Edith Schiele that was purchased by Lehman Sr.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Source\uff1ahttps:\/\/www.artnews.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 1917 drawing by\u00a0Egon Schiele\u00a0is at the center of a restitution case that will soon head to court in New York. The work in question,\u00a0Portrait of the Artist\u2019s Wife\u00a0(1917), depicts Edith Schiele with her hands folded in her lap. The drawing was made a year before both Edith and the artist, both at 28 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13,7,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2130","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artist","8":"category-auction","9":"category-events","10":"category-gallery","11":"category-latest-news"},"yoast_head":"\nOwnership of Egon Schiele Drawing Lost During Holocaust to Be Decided by New York Court - Investable Art Auctioneer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A 1917 drawing by\u00a0Egon Schiele\u00a0is at the center of a restitution case that will soon head to court in New York.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atelierauction.com\/globalupdates\/artist\/ownership-of-egon-schiele-drawing-lost-during-holocaust-to-be-decided-by-new-york-court\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ownership of Egon Schiele Drawing Lost During Holocaust to Be Decided by New York Court - 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