Back in 2006, the heirs of a Jewish entertainer and art collector murdered in a Nazi concentration camp sent a letter to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art formally demanding the return of a valuable drawing they said was stolen from their late relative by Hitler’s Third Reich. 

Offering sworn testimony from art historians, handwriting analysts, and other experts as to the drawing’s true provenance, the family of Frtiz Grünbaum and their attorneys insisted they had legal claim over the work by Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele, which had been gifted to the museum by one of its founders at a time when Nazi-looted art with forged paper trails flowed freely through the market.

“To this date,” the Grünbaum family letter said, “the world’s museum community has been content to enjoy this stolen art without searching for heirs and explanations. It is time for this shameful conspiracy of silence to end.”

On Wednesday, more than 17 years later, a small measure of that silence was finally broken with an announcement by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office that seven Schiele paintings and drawings from Grünbaum’s once vast collection ― including the one in Santa Barbara’s possession ― were being returned to his relatives.

“We are returning these beautiful works to their rightful owners, to the family,” said District Attorney Alvin Brag during the emotional handover ceremony that coincided with the Jewish High Holy Days. “This incredible art collection was stolen by the Nazi regime.”

This is a developing story.

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