How does this artwork elucidate its Efforts at recovery?
After the end of World War II, the United States Army 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 (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 of Schiele's works omits Lea Bondi from the list of provenance, despite an earlier catalogue by Otto Kallir citing her as the last owner in the 1930s. Bondi died in 1969 and her heirs picked up the trail she had been following.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 Museum of Modern Art.
Leopold Museum Austria provenance Lea Bondi United States Army Österreichische Galerie Belvedere catalogue raisonné Museum of Modern Art Vienna World War II