''Portrait of Wally'' is a 1912 oil painting by

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n painter

Egon Schiele Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portrai ...

of Walburga "Wally" Neuzil, a woman whom he met in 1911 when he was 21 and she was 17. She became his lover and model for several years, depicted in a number of Schiele's most striking paintings. The painting was obtained by Rudolf Leopold in 1954 and became part of the collection of the Leopold Museum when it was established by the Austrian government, purchasing 5,000 pieces that Leopold had owned. Near the end of a 1997–1998 exhibit of Schiele's work at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

in New York, the painting's ownership (

provenance Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...

) history was revealed in an article published in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. After the publication, the heirs of Lea Bondi Jaray, to whom the work had belonged before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, contacted the

New York County District Attorney The New York County District Attorney, also known as the Manhattan District Attorney, is the elected district attorney for New York County (Manhattan), New York. The office is responsible for the prosecution of violations of New York state laws ...

who issued a subpoena forbidding its return to Austria. The work was tied up in litigation for years by Bondi's heirs, who claimed that the painting was

Nazi plunder Nazi plunder (german: Raubkunst) was the stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany. The looting of Polish and Jewish property was a k ...

and should have been returned to them. In July 2010, the Leopold Museum agreed to pay $19 million to Bondi's heirs under an agreement that would address all outstanding claims on the painting.Staff
"Austrian museum pays $19 million for Nazi-looted painting"
,

Jewish Telegraphic Agency The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its we ...

, July 21, 2010. Accessed July 22, 2010.
Row over Egon Schiele work costs Austrian museum $19m
'. BBC, July 21, 2010.

Relationship with Neuzil

In 1911, Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Walburga (Wally) Neuzil, who moved in with him in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

and modeled for him. Very little is known of her; she may have previously modelled for

Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's pr ...

and might have been one of Klimt's mistresses. Schiele and Wally wanted to escape what they perceived as the claustrophobic Viennese milieu, and went to the small town of Český Krumlov ( Krumau) in southern

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

. Although Krumau was the birthplace of Schiele's mother (and is today the site of a Schiele museum), he and his lover were driven out of the town by the residents, who strongly disapproved of their lifestyle which included his alleged employment of the town's teenage girls as models. Together they moved to

Neulengbach Neulengbach is a municipality in the district of Sankt Pölten-Land in Lower Austria. Population Historical personalities In 1911, the twenty-one year-old artist Egon Schiele met the seventeen-year-old Walburga (Wally) Neuzil, who lived wit ...

, 35 km west of Vienna, seeking inspirational surroundings and an inexpensive studio in which to work. As it was in the capital, Schiele's studio became a gathering place for Neulengbach's delinquent children. Schiele's way of life aroused much animosity among the town's inhabitants, and in April 1912 he was arrested and jailed for seducing a young girl below the age of consent, and more than a hundred of his drawings were seized as pornographic. Although the charge of seduction was dropped, he was found guilty of exhibiting erotic drawings in a place accessible to children and sentenced to 3 additional days in jail besides the 3 weeks already served. In 1914, Schiele had a studio in the Viennese suburb of

Hietzing Hietzing () is the 13th municipal District of Vienna (german: 13. Bezirk, Hietzing). It is located west of the central districts, west of Meidling. Hietzing is a heavily populated urban area with many residential buildings, but also contains lar ...

. Across the street was a middle-class, Protestant locksmith family which included the sisters Edith and Adéle Harms. In February 1915, Schiele wrote a note to a friend stating: "I intend to get married, advantageously. Not to Wally." When he told Wally, she left him immediately and never saw him again. Around this time he painted ''Death and the Maiden'', where Wally's portrait is based on a previous work, but Schiele's is new. Schiele and Edith Harms did get married on 17 June 1915. After leaving Schiele, Neuzil trained as a nurse and worked at a military hospital in Vienna. In 1917 she was working in the

Dalmatia Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see names in other languages) is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of the Adriatic Sea, str ...

region of

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = " Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capi ...

, and died there on December 25 of scarlet fever.

Early ownership and Nazi seizure

As outlined in a 1997 article by

Judith H. Dobrzynski Judith Helen Dobrzynski (born March 8, 1949) is an American journalist and instructor in journalism.German annexation of Austria and the

Aryanization Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...

program, and had under duress given up the painting to art dealer Friedrich Welz in 1939. While Bondi's art gallery had already been "

Aryanized Aryanization (german: Arisierung) was the Nazi term for the seizure of property from Jews and its transfer to non-Jews, and the forced expulsion of Jews from economic life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. I ...

" and all paintings seized, Welz had seen the painting in Bondi's apartment, where it was part of her private collection, and demanded that she turn it over to him. As they were to be fleeing the country any day, her husband convinced her to turn the painting over to Welz, saying "you know what he can do." Welz also forced Dr. Heinrich Rieger to sell his collection of Schiele paintings before Rieger was deported to the

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

, where he was murdered on October 21, 1942.Bayzler, Michael J.; and Alford, Roger P
"Holocaust restitution: perspectives on the litigation and its legacy"
p. 281.

NYU Press New York University Press (or NYU Press) is a university press that is part of New York University. History NYU Press was founded in 1916 by the then chancellor of NYU, Elmer Ellsworth Brown. Directors * Arthur Huntington Nason, 1916–1932 ...

, 2006. . Accessed July 5, 2010.

Efforts at recovery

After the end of

, the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

seized Welz and recovered the paintings that he had accumulated during the war. The ''Portrait of Wally'' was mixed in with the other Schiele paintings from Rieger's collection, which were all turned over to the Austrian government. The

Österreichische Galerie Belvedere The Österreichische Galerie Belvedere is a museum housed in the Belvedere palace, in Vienna, Austria. The Belvedere palaces were the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736). The ensemble was built in the early eighteenth centu ...

(Austrian National Gallery) purchased the Schiele works from Rieger's heirs, which erroneously included the ''Portrait of Wally'' because of a clerical error by the U.S. forces, listing the painting as Rieger's. The museum was informed of the mistake, that the painting had not belonged to Rieger. After Bondi recovered ownership of her Vienna art gallery in 1946, she contacted Welz, who told her the painting had been turned over to the Austrian National Gallery. Bondi recounted that she had met Rudolph Leopold in London in 1953 and asked for his assistance in retrieving the painting from the museum, offering to help him acquire other works by Schiele. Bondi later discovered that Leopold had purchased the painting from the museum for himself in 1954. Leopold's 1972

catalogue raisonné A ''catalogue raisonné'' (or critical catalogue) is a comprehensive, annotated listing of all the known artworks by an artist either in a particular medium or all media. The works are described in such a way that they may be reliably identified ...

of Schiele's works omits Lea Bondi from the list of

, despite an earlier catalogue by Otto Kallir citing her as the last owner in the 1930s.Lufkin, Martha
"US lawsuit to confiscate Schiele's Portrait of Wally suspended: Judgement has been postponed to allow the government to review new evidence"
''

The Art Newspaper ''The Art Newspaper'' is a monthly print publication, with daily updates online, founded in 1990 and based in London and New York City. It covers news of the visual arts as they are affected by international politics and economics, developments ...

'', July–August 2008. Accessed July 5, 2010. Bondi died in 1969 and her heirs picked up the trail she had been following. Dobrzynski, Judith H.
"THE ZEALOUS COLLECTOR – A special report.; A Singular Passion For Amassing Art, One Way or Another"
''

'', December 24, 1997. Accessed July 5, 2010. In 1994, ''Portrait of Wally'' was among 5,400 works in Leopold's art collection purchased for $500 million by the Austrian government and used to create the Leopold Museum, with Leopold named as director for life, a position he served in until his death in June 2010. In a 1995 catalogue of works by Schiele, Leopold inserted the claim that the picture had been part of the Rieger collection that he had earlier acquired from the Austrian National Gallery. The Leopold Museum included the painting in a group of works exhibited from October 8, 1997, to January 4, 1998, at the

Legal proceedings

New York County District Attorney

Robert M. Morgenthau Robert Morris Morgenthau ( ; July 31, 1919July 21, 2019) was an American lawyer. From 1975 until his retirement in 2009, he was the District Attorney for New York County (the borough of Manhattan), having previously served as United States Atto ...

subpoenaed the ''Portrait of Wally'' together with another Schiele painting in January 1998, claiming that they had been improperly acquired

Nazi loot Nazi plunder (german: Raubkunst) was the stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany. The looting of Polish and Jewish property was a k ...

. In September 1999, the

New York Court of Appeals The New York Court of Appeals is the highest court in the Unified Court System of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals consists of seven judges: the Chief Judge and six Associate Judges who are appointed by the Governor and confirmed by t ...

rejected Morgenthau's claim that he could seize the paintings under state law, whereupon the

United States Customs Service The United States Customs Service was the very first federal law enforcement agency of the U.S. federal government. Established on July 31, 1789, it collected import tariffs, performed other selected border security duties, as well as conducted c ...

seized the paintings under federal law. In legal proceedings, the museum stated that Bondi had decided to drop the matter in 1954 and that there was no evidence to show that Leopold knew that the painting had been Nazi plunder when he acquired it. The heirs of the Bondi family maintained that Bondi had made multiple efforts to recover the painting, which were continued after her death. In October 2009, after more than a decade of proceedings and legal wrangling,

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a United States district court, federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of New York (state), New York ...

Judge

Loretta A. Preska Loretta A. Preska (born January 7, 1949) is an American federal judge who is currently a senior U.S. District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Born in Albany, Preska received law degrees from Fo ...

ruled that there was enough evidence regarding the ownership of the painting to allow a trial to proceed, saying that the Leopold Museum was aware of the painting's questionable

when it sent the picture to the Museum of Modern Art 12 years earlier. At trial, a jury would determine if there was sufficient evidence to show that Leopold had known the painting was stolen when it was brought for exhibit to the United States. In early July 2010, sources indicated to ''

'' that the Bondi estate would accept $20 million as restitution for the painting in a deal completed shortly before Leopold's death the previous month, weeks before a civil trial was scheduled to start in

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

. Under the terms of the deal, the painting would be returned to the Leopold Museum, where it would be hung together with a Schiele self-portrait that has been used as a logo for the museum.D'Arcy, David
"Settlement close on Portrait of Wally case"
''

'', July 4, 2010. Accessed July 5, 2010. By July 21, 2010 the Leopold Museum and the Bondi estate agreed upon a settlement of $19 million. The history of the painting and the legal efforts by the Bondi heirs to recover it are the subject of the 2012 documentary ''Portrait of Wally'' by filmmaker Andrew Shea.

References

External links

Schiele's ''Portrait of Wally'' – a Long Court Case
Commission for Art Recovery, affiliated with the

World Jewish Congress The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as ...

''Portrait of Wally''

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...