Why Are Museums Holding On to Art Looted by the Nazis?

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Helen Mirren’s latest film, Woman in Gold, tells a true story of an arts battle.

Mirren stars as Maria Altmann, a naturalized U.S. citizen who sues the Austrian government to recover a glittering, golden portrait of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, painted by Viennese art nouveau master Gustav Klimt and looted from her family’s home by the Nazis.

Justice prevails through pressure imposed by U.S. courts: The portrait of Adele finds a welcoming new home in America.

While Woman in Gold is a feel-good, triumphant tale for American audiences, it’s important to note that the country’s own art museums still have work to do to ensure justice for Holocaust victims. The story of this one painting doesn’t mitigate the fact that at least 100,000 works of art confiscated by the Nazis haven’t been returned to rightful owners.

In museums across the U.S. there are paintings, sculptures and other works of art with provenance gaps from the Nazi era, signaling a need for ongoing research into rightful ownership.

An international court battle

The Austrian government believed the painting had been willed to it in 1925 by its subject, Adele Bloch-Bauer. For this reason, the government argued the painting had nothing to do with restitution—the return of works to the victims of Nazi theft or their heirs.

However, in 1998 Austrian journalist Hubertus Czernin unearthed documents in Austrian archives indicating that Adele’s husband Ferdinand had been the rightful owner when the Nazis seized the collection in 1938.

Ferdinand had died nearly penniless in Zurich in 1945, leaving all his assets to his niece Maria Altmann, along with her brother and sister.

Czernin’s findings boosted Altmann’s claims to the portrait and four other Klimt paintings still held by the Austrian government.

Ultimately, Altmann—a naturalized U.S. citizen—decided to file her claim in a U.S. court by invoking the Foreign Sovereignty Immunities Act. The law provides exceptions to sovereign immunity when a country violates international law with U.S. commercial interests at stake.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Altmann’s favor in 2004.

Rather than face a protracted legal battle, Austria offered to try the case via an arbitration panel of Austrian experts. The panel awarded the painting to Altmann.

Altmann would eventually sell the portrait to cosmetics heir and World Jewish Congress leader Ronald Lauder for a then-record sum of $135 million.

Austria was already seeking to make amends

Altmann’s ultimate victory allowed Americans to relish the U.S. role in the restitution of Nazi-looted art.

In this way, Woman in Gold continues a heroic art recovery narrative also reflected in The Monuments Men, the 2014 George Clooney film that extols the bravery of American men who risked their lives to recover thousands of works from Nazi repositories in castles, churches and salt mines.

But Woman in Gold glosses over the broader historical context of art restitution.

In fact, after decades of thwarting restitution claims, the Austrian government—like other European countries—had already been actively taking steps to compensate victims of Nazi persecution.

In 1996, it auctioned looted artworks still held by the government, giving $14.6 million in proceeds to Jewish organizations.

Two years later, Austria was among 44 countries that signed the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, a non-binding agreement to pursue just and fair solutions in restitution cases.

And the same year, an Austrian Federal Art Restitution Law provided for restitution of works held by state museums that had been donated under duress or looted in the Nazi era.

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