Focus on Portrait of Wally and analyze the Legal proceedings.
New York County District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau subpoenaed the Portrait of Wally together with another Schiele painting in January 1998, claiming that they had been improperly acquired Nazi loot. In September 1999, the New York Court of Appeals rejected Morgenthau's claim that he could seize the paintings under state law, whereupon the United States Customs Service 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 Judge Loretta A. Preska 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 provenance 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 The Art Newspaper 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. 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. 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.
Loretta A. Preska Leopold Museum United States District Court Robert M. Morgenthau provenance New York County District Attorney United States Customs Service The Art Newspaper Museum of Modern Art New York Court of Appeals United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Nazi plunder Nazi loot