{"id":104531,"date":"2023-05-24T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T15:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=104531"},"modified":"2023-05-24T09:59:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T07:59:47","slug":"31-00-42","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=104531","title":{"rendered":"Heirs of Jewish Gallery Owner Who Fled Nazi-Occupied Austria Claim Sotheby\u2019s Was Misleading About Sold Painting\u2019s Provenance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Heirs of Jewish Gallery Owner Who Fled Nazi-Occupied Austria Claim Sotheby\u2019s Was Misleading About Sold Painting\u2019s Provenance<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Shiryn Ghermezian<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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A partial view of \u201cSt. Francis of Paola Holding a Rosary, Book, and Staff\u201d by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Photo: Sotheby\u2019s via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Three heirs of a Jewish man who fled Austria to escape Nazi persecution during World War II are claiming in court papers filed on Friday that the auction house Sotheby\u2019s \u201cmisled the public\u201d by selling a painting once owned by their relative without disclosing the artwork\u2019s full provenance and its ties to the Nazi era,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reported this week.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2019, Sotheby\u2019s\u00a0sold\u00a0<\/a>St. Francis of Paola Holding a Rosary, Book, and Staff<\/em>\u00a0by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, an oil on canvas left behind in Austria by Jewish gallery owner Otto Fro\u0308hlich when he fled the country in 1938. At the time of the sale, Sotheby\u2019s auction catalog merely said the painting was part of a \u201cdistinguished private collection\u201d and once owned by the Galerie Wolfgang Bo\u0308hler in Bensheim, Germany. The painting sold for $100,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a petition filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Fro\u0308hlich heirs allege that the painting was once in the possession of Julius Bo\u0308hler, an art dealer in Munich, according to\u00a0The New York Times.<\/em>\u00a0The publication additionally noted that Bo\u0308hler\u2019s name appears a number of times in a 1946 report by the US government\u2019s Art Looting Investigation Unit that examined World War II-era stolen artwork in Europe. Bo\u0308hler was accused of looting art and the report also described him as \u201ca strong Nazi.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Fro\u0308hlich\u2019s relatives also claim in their petition that in 1938, after Fro\u0308hlich fled Vienna for Britain, the Tiepolo painting was transferred for safeguarding to the Galerie Sanct Lucas in Vienna. The heirs believe\u00a0that by attributing the painting to the wrong gallery, Sotheby\u2019s made the sale easier for themselves while also \u201cperpetuating the very cycle of injustice and exploitation that began in 1938 and that the international and national restitution laws and policies were designed to prevent,\u201d the petition said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fro\u0308hlich heirs did not specify that the Tiepolo painting was looted, but instead argue that it was a \u201cforced sale.\u201d They claim Fro\u0308hlich would not have been forced to close his gallery, flee Austria and leave the painting behind if it was not for Nazi persecution, according to the\u00a0New York Times.<\/em>\u00a0They are demanding that Sotheby\u2019s reveal the identity of the painting\u2019s seller and purchaser so the family can move forward with a restitution claim.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sotheby\u2019s said in a statement cited by\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0that the provenance listed in its 2019 catalog for the painting was a result of \u201chuman error.\u201d The auction house added that it further researched the artwork after hearing from Fro\u0308hlich heirs and discovered that the painting had a owner before Fro\u0308hlich who faced Nazi persecution and whose heirs may be able to lay claim to the art.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhile Sotheby\u2019s remains committed to reaching a just and amicable solution in the restitution of this work to its rightful heirs, additional research and evidence is needed to ascertain who the correct claimant should be in this instance, with current evidence supporting a possible claim by the heirs of Adele Fischel,\u201d Sotheby\u2019s said.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heirs of Jewish Gallery Owner Who Fled Nazi-Occupied Austria Claim Sotheby\u2019s Was Misleading About Sold Painting\u2019s Provenance Shiryn Ghermezian A partial view of \u201cSt. Francis of Paola Holding a Rosary, Book, and Staff\u201d by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Photo: Sotheby\u2019s via Wikimedia Commons Three heirs of a Jewish man who fled Austria to escape Nazi persecution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104531"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104552,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104531\/revisions\/104552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}