An Austrian government advisory board has recommended against returning a 112-foot artwork by Gustav Klimt to the heirs of the Jewish art dealer who sold it.
The panel, which examines claims over works of art looted by the Nazis, unanimously recommended on March 6 not to return “The Beethoven Frieze” to the heirs of the Lederer family because, according to the panel’s members, it had been lawfully sold to the state.
The Austrian state already returned the painting once to Viennese art dealer Erich Lederer after World War II, when it was seized by the Nazis along with other works owned by the family after its members fled to Switzerland in 1938.
But the family’s lawyers claimed that Austria would not let Lederer export the artwork, forcing him to sell it to the state at a discount price of about $750,000 in the 1970s. The Secession Museum in Vienna, where the 1902 “Beethoven Frieze” is on display, disputed this claim.
In 2009 Austria amended its laws on restitution and looted art to include works sold under pressure. — jta