US authorities have seized three artworks allegedly looted by the Nazis that are being sought by the heirs of a Jewish collector who died in the Holocaust.
They on Thursday confirmed a report in The New York Times that New York investigators had taken the works by the 1900s Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele from three US-based museums.
In warrants issued on Tuesday the New York State Supreme Court said “there is reasonable cause to believe” the works constitute stolen property.
The works were seized from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, and the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College in Ohio.
The works in question were Russian War Prisoner (1916), a watercolor and pencil on paper piece valued at $US1.25m ($1.93), seized from the Art Institute; Portrait of a Man (1917), a pencil on paper drawing valued at $US1m and taken from the Carnegie Museums; and Girl With Black Hair (1911), a watercolor and pencil on paper work valued at $US1.5m, seized from Oberlin.
The art pieces are being sought by heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, a prominent Jewish art collector and cabaret artist who died in the Dachau concentration camp in Germany in 1941.
Read the article in The Australian (AFP).