Austrian museum settles Nazi art theft row

The Leopold Museum in Vienna, has settled a decades-long dispute over a painting the Nazis extorted during World War II

An Austrian museum has agreed to settle a decades-long dispute by paying 19 million dollars to the estate of a Jewish woman for a painting the Nazis extorted from her during World War II, the US prosecutor's office in New York said.





"According to the terms of the settlement agreement, the Leopold Museum will pay (the victim's) estate 19 million dollars in exchange for the painting," the office of the US attorney in New York said in a statement.

The settlement means the case will not go to a trial scheduled to start this month.

The painting in dispute, Egon Schiele's 1912 "Portrait of Wally," was seized by the United States in 1999 while it was on loan to the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

That triggered a legal battle in which the Leopold Museum claimed to have acquired the work legally in 1954. The original Jewish owner, Bondi Jaray, insisted until her death in 1969 that the work still belonged to her and her heirs maintained the claim.