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Artworks' Laws of Return

LEISURE & ARTS

Vienna -- On the cusp of this new fin de siecle, Austria is finally completing an unfinished -- and emotionally charged -- piece of 20th-century business: restituting Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners.

In the aftermath of the Washington conference on Holocaust-era assets, Austria's "Commission for Provenance Research" is gearing up to present its
first findings this week, which could begin the return of artworks by early next year. At issue are hundreds of paintings, coins, pieces of furniture and other art objects on display in Austria's public museums. The disputed works include no fewer than five paintings by Gustav Klimt -- a sizeable chunk of the artist's oeuvre.

Vienna began to comb its archives for works of doubtful provenance in the  early '90s. But the effort turned serious only early this year, when Austria's culture minister ordered a comprehensive review of all art acquired between 1938-45 after Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau took legal action to bar two contested paintings by Egon Schiele on loan to the Museum of Modern Art from returning to Austria. The case is currently on appeal.

The Austrian commission's first order of business will be the return of art restituted to former owners after World War II but later "donated" to Austrian museums by Austrian-Jewish refugees who chose to remain in permanent exile, because a law enacted to protect national patrimony art after World War I forbade their export. This affected only a minor number of the 18,000 looted artworks retrieved from a U.S. Army depot in Munich in 1945; Austria restituted the bulk of them to former owners over the next three years under seven separate restitution laws.

Still, a significant residue remained in Austria in official collections because of the 1918 law, which effectively nationalized the works by pressuring owners to "contribute" them to museums. Though this was both legal -- and tacitly approved by the four foreign powers who occupied Austria until 1955 -- it doesn't square with contemporary ideas of justice for victims of the Holocaust.

Into this category fall the collections of the Lederer and Rothschild families, the latter of which includes a Frans Hals in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Museum and an extensive collection of furniture at Vienna's Museum for Applied Arts. As the best-documented of the major collections -- an extensive catalog of its holdings was published before the war -- the Rothschild collection will be among the first to be returned.

Less clear-cut is the case of the Klimts, which Adele Bloch-Bauer, wife of sugar magnate Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and herself the subject of two of the artist's portraits bequeathed to the Austrian National Gallery in 1923. A niece of the family in Los Angeles has retained a lawyer to challenge the bequest, primarily on the grounds that Mr. Bloch-Bauer fled Austria long after the bequest and died in exile in 1945.

Austrian officials confirm that the Klimts will fall under the commission's purview, but say that no decision has been made on their fate. "It wouldn't be serious to give an answer before we research everything and put all the  cards on the table," says Ernst Bacher, the professor of medieval history and head of Austria's chief conservation office, who heads the commission.

Also to be decided is the fate of about 200 "herrenlos" (ownerless) artworks for which claimants still can't be found. The works, says Mr. Bacher, will probably be auctioned off, with the proceeds, as in the case of two similar auctions held in 1969 and 1996, going to benefit a fund for Holocaust victims.
 

So far, the drive to return stolen artworks has aroused little of the jingoist backlash here of the sort that accompanied the international uproar over former President Kurt Waldheim's wartime past did a decade ago. Last month, Austria's Parliament passed the law that provides the basis for the return of the works with strong support from all parties, including Joerg Haider's right-wing, populist Freedom Party.

Still, Austrian officials bristle at any suggestions that they can't be trusted with the task. Mr. Morgenthau's legal shackling of the two disputed Schieles, still in storage at MoMA, has caused particular consternation here. "Austria is a state of law with democratic principles," Heidemarie Glueck, a spokeswoman for the culture ministry, says of the case. "This is a matter for the courts -- and we think that legal claims can be made in Austria, too."

Certainly, the commission has a daunting task before it. As of last month, it had reviewed only a third of the 120,000 documents -- inventories, catalogs, looting lists, declarations by departing emigrants -- relating to the artworks. While the first works are expected to be returned by early next year, the commission's work is expected to continue for another several months, and possibly even years.

Despite pressure in Austria and abroad to finish the job quickly, given the wrongs done to former owners, those responsible say, this time they're determined to do it right. "I think it's in the interest of former owners that we now take the time to do this properly," Mr. Bacher says. "It doesn't make sense to do it in a hurry only to demonstrate that we can finish it in a few weeks."

Mr. Reed is The Wall Street Journal Europe's Vienna correspondent.