Egon Schiele's Artwork Confiscated in the US Due to Holocaust Ownership Dispute

Artworks by Austrian artist Egon Schiele have been seized by US authorities from American museums, following a claim that they were looted during the Holocaust. Three pieces have been seized in New York from galleries in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Ohio. The claim has been made by the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, an Austrian-Jewish art collector and critic of Nazism, who died in a concentration camp in 1941. The museums assert their legal ownership of the artworks and state that Mr. Grünbaum was forced to sign over power of attorney to his wife while he was in a concentration camp. The pieces seized include a painting valued at $1.25 million, which remains in the possession of the Art Institute of Chicago for now. The Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh have also had a drawing worth $1 million seized, while the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio has had a painting valued at $1.5 million targeted. The New York state supreme court has issued search warrants stating that there is reasonable cause to believe the artworks were stolen property. The Manhattan district attorney's office has declined to comment. The heirs of Mr. Grünbaum have been pursuing Schiele artworks for years and have previously been successful in securing some paintings in court battles.