Last Friday, an event was held andn the New York District Attorney's Office in which the return of a work by Egon Schiele to its legitimate heirs took place.
Timothy Rief, a descendant of Fritz Grünbaum, received one more painting by the Austrian Expressionist painter.
This is the box number eleven that the family receives, after decades of court fights over the rightful inheritance of Viennese Jewish cabaret performer Fritz Grünbaum.
Reif expressed that “in one of the darkest moments in the history of the world, everything ended,” adding that “there is a moral center of gravity, there is an ethical, religious sense and there is generosity that arises from something that was fundamentally evil. For this to happen is incredible.”
In this case, it was a drawing titled “Seated Nude Woman, Seen from the Front,” which until now belonged to the Jewish economist Gustav Fritz Papanek, who does not know the origin of the work.
Papanek's family stated that they believed returning the drawing was the right thing to do: “We are fortunate that our family… was able to enjoy seeing this work of art daily. “The experience of both families serves as another reminder of the evil and brutality of the Nazi regime.”