On February 28, 2024, Judge John Koeltl of the federal district court in Manhattan dismissed an attempt to challenge the Art Institute of Chicago’s legal ownership of an Egon Schiele drawing, “Russian War Prisoner.” In the latest memorandum, Koeltl upheld his prior decision to dismiss the case brought by the heirs of a Fritz Grünbaum, who alleged that the drawing was stolen from the Austrian Jewish performer by Nazis during World War II.

Judge Koeltl previously held that Mr. Grünbaum’s heirs were bound by a 2011 decision against them by a different federal court, which concluded, after a full bench trial, that that Mr. Grünbaum’s art collection “was not looted by the Nazis,” and further found that the heirs’ claims were untimely under the equitable doctrine of laches. In the current litigation, Judge Koeltl found that the claims against the Art Institute of Chicago were barred both by laches and by New York’s statute of limitations. The judge rejected the argument that the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 and revived the statute of limitations, finding that the Act did not apply because the plaintiffs had a previous opportunity to bring their claims between 2006 and 2009, but they failed to do so.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is serving as legal counsel to the Art Institute of Chicago in this matter. The Wilson Sonsini litigation team includes Luis Li, Jessica Lonergan, Fred Rowley, Eric Tuttle, Matthew Donohue, Cole Kroshus, Conor Tucker, Melisa Desperak, Deborah Bellinger, Kazuko Shintani, Jocelyn Rodriguez, and Anthony Geritano.

For more information, please see Artnet’s coverage on the matter. Further coverage can be found on The New York Times.