Memories came flooding back last week when Rudolph Leopold, the zealous collector of Egon Schiele (in particular), died. As I’ve mentioned, I wrote the investigative article in The New York Times in late 1997 that brought to the attention of the family of Lea Bondi — and to the Manhattan D.A.’s office — that Portrait of Wally was hanging in the Museum of Modern Art. The family then said it had been take by the Nazis and claimed it; then the D.A. subpoenaed it, and the whole dispute is still tied up in the courts.
Except that yesterday, David D’Arcy reported for The Art Newspaper that a setttlement, reached before Leopold’s death, is imminent. It would, he wrote, give the Bondi family $20 million for the Schiele painting. The Leopold collection owns its counterpart — a self-portrait (right). They belong together. According to the article:
Wally was valued at some $1 million at the time of its seizure by New York State prosecutors in 1998. $20 million represents the high range of its current estimated value. The London Schiele dealer Richard Nagy put its value at $13 million-$15 million last week.
The compensation funds will be raised, insiders say, from sales of works from the Leopold Collection, which holds some 5400 objects, including 250 works by Schiele.
The final phase of the trial was set to begin this month.
Here’s a link to The Art Newspaper bulletin.
Photo Credit: Courtesy Leopold Museum (bottom)