THE ARCHIVE BY COUNTRY
Published reports from our archive, newest first.
A country may refer to the theft, recovery, return or legal proceedings. A case can be linked to more than one country.
Archive updated ·
17 reports
The €30 million bid for Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Fräulein Lieser at Im Kinsky in 2024 did not result in a completed sale after a further ownership claim emerged. In 2026, a claimant brought a US lawsuit seeking recognition as an heir and the return of the painting. Its ownership remained disputed.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum attributed the face in Portrait of an Old Man to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The work had previously been listed as an anonymous Roman painting. Technical examination indicated two hands, and the museum’s curator proposed that a collaborator painted the lower part.
ORF reported that Salzburg police were investigating the theft of more than 200 gold-coloured miniature Mozarts from Ottmar Hörl’s installation in the Mirabell Gardens. The image shows remaining examples from the installation, photographed by Georg Hummer for ORF.
Ernst Fuchs, Hinter dem Schweißtuch der Veronika (1953). Museum press photograph via APA-OTS. Image source ↗
The Ernst Fuchs Museum raised its reward to €30,000 for Hinter dem Schweißtuch der Veronika, stolen in June 2023. The June 2024 offer is historical; current validity is unconfirmed.
Austrian authorities sought the bronze statuette Daphne after it disappeared from a museum exhibition in Vienna’s Penzing district.
Austrian police announced the recovery of nine works by Hermann Nitsch. Two had been seized in Vienna in 2021 and seven were located during searches in Germany and Romania in November 2022. Investigators said three other paintings were still missing when they announced the results. Photo of recovered work: Lower Austrian police via ORF.
ORF reported a sentence against one of three men in the November 2018 Renoir theft. The judgment was not final at the publication date.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Golfe, mer, falaises vertes, 1895. Dorotheum / Roberto Gobbo, via Wikimedia Commons (public-domain reproduction). Image source ↗
Vienna police reported that three men removed a Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting from its frame at the Dorotheum on 26 November 2018. The auction catalogue identifies it as Golfe, mer, falaises vertes, 1895. This records the original theft stage; the 2019 sentencing report is separate.
The Museo del Prado completed a two-year restoration of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Triumph of Death. The painting subsequently travelled to Vienna for an exhibition marking the artist’s anniversary.
Police found 67 of the 72 paintings stolen from a villa in Vienna’s Hietzing district in 2014. The recovered works included paintings by Carl Moll, Koloman Moser and Oskar Kokoschka. Five were unaccounted for at the time of the 2017 announcement. Image: Carl Moll’s Kirschblüten in Grinzing, via Der Standard.
The Vienna auction house withdrew Bartholomeus van der Helst’s Portrait of a Man after the French Ministry of Culture asked for time to pursue a solution with the Schloss heirs. The picture belonged to the collection seized from the family in 1943.
Egon Schiele, Portrait of Wally Neuzil. Leopold Museum collection image. Image source ↗
A settlement provided $19 million to Lea Bondi Jaray’s estate in the dispute over Egon Schiele’s Portrait of Wally. The painting would remain with the Leopold Museum, with acknowledgment of its looted history. The agreement did not return the painting to the heirs.
Benvenuto Cellini, Saliera. Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, via The World of the Habsburgs. Image source ↗
Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum announced the return of Benvenuto Cellini’s Saliera, stolen in 2003. An initial examination found relatively minor damage. Public display was scheduled to resume at the end of January 2006.
Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer II. Photograph: Johannes Stoll, courtesy HomeArt, via Belvedere. Image source ↗
An Austrian arbitration panel ruled that five Gustav Klimt paintings should be returned to the Bloch-Bauer heirs, including Maria Altmann. The January 2006 report records the ruling; the physical transfer followed later.
Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain. Image source ↗
Nazi authorities seized the flask from Baron Alphonse Mayer Rothschild’s collection in Vienna in 1938. Austria returned it to his heirs in 1949.
Image: National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public domain. Image source ↗
The Nazi authorities confiscated the painting from the Haas home in Vienna in 1938. It was recovered after the war and returned to the family in 1948.
Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain. Image source ↗
Nazi authorities seized Henri Mauperché’s Classical Landscape with Figures from the Lanckoronski family in Vienna in 1939. The painting was returned in 1945.
