Austrian museum to sell Schiele painting

[May 06, 2011]  VIENNA (AP) -- An Austrian museum says it is selling a prized Egon Schiele painting to cover the cost of the loan it took to recover another of the expressionist artist's works.

The Leopold Museum says proceeds of the 1914 "Houses with colorful laundry (Suburb II)" will pay the $19 million (euro15 million) loan it took to recover "Portrait of Wally" after a 12-year U.S. legal battle.

The settlement called for the Leopold Museum to own the painting and to display it with an acknowledgment that it was stolen from a Jewish art dealer by a Nazi agent.

U.S. authorities had refused to return the work after it was exhibited in 1998 at the New York Museum of Modern Art because of a claim by descendants of a Jewish woman who was forced to sell it at an unrealistically low price in the prelude to World War II.

The Leopold Museum said Thursday the auction will take place June 22 at Sotheby's in London.

[Associated Press]

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.