Vienna Museum Returns Nazi-Looted Painting
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A Jewish museum in Vienna returned a painting that was seized by the Nazis in 1938 to the artist’s grandnieces on Friday, part of a wider move in Austria to deal with art illegally acquired after Germany annexed the country in 1938.
The 1922 work “The coffee hour. Fanny, the sister of the artist” by Jewish artist Jehudo Epstein, was handed to the granddaughter of the woman in the painting, Anne Starkey, who traveled from Britain to receive the piece, the museum said.
The painting was given to the Jewish Museum in 2010 and the museum’s own inquiry into its provenance found it should be returned to the painter’s heirs.
Epstein traveled to South Africa in 1934, leaving many of his possessions, including the painting, with a friend in Vienna. When the Nazis annexed Austria, Epstein stayed in exile in South Africa and the painting was confiscated by the Nazis.
Epstein died in South Africa in 1945.
Last year, Austria’s Der Standard newspaper reported that hundreds of books and works of art now in the Jewish Museum may have been stolen by the Nazis.
The museum is in discussion with other heirs of Epstein in a separate restitution case, the spokesman said.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
