Talk:Maria Altmann

The Klimt paintings
After reading the article on Maria Altmann and a little bit of the history on the paintings involved in the case vs. Austria, it seems that the Austrian government took advantage of the fact that the pictures were aquired in a devious way. Glorifying that it  is  okay  to  own something  you  know  was  stolen. You may  have  not  been  the  one  to  commit  the  act  but  you  are supporting  it  by  not returning it to it's righful owner. To claim ownership over  property  that  was  stolen  during  such  a  horrible  period  is  ludacris. In the  will  of Ferdinand  Bloch  all  the items  in  his  estate  were  expressed  to  one  Maria Altmann  including  the  paintings. My question  is  How  can  someone,  government  or  other  claim  property  as  their  own? Family heirlooms  do  not classify  as  a  national symbol. The artist  however  should  be  glorified  for  such  a  beautiful  piece. With all  do  respect  to  Gustav  Klimt  and  his  Austrian  heritage  it  is  understandable  that such  beautiful  works  would  be  hard  to  let  go  of. However the  paintings  were  never  really  obtained  honestly. Furthermore, the  "Golden  Rule"  may  not  apply  to  everyone and  everything,  that  being  Would  you  question  the  validity  of  ownership  of  a  family  heirloom? In this case it should. Also if  the  "heirloom"  was  considered  a  "wealthy"  object  would  you object  to  the  government  or  persons  who  falsely  claim  it  to  get  a  piece  of  the  wealth  even  though  it  was  aquired  by  false  means? In closing  if  Maria  Altmann didn't  battle  for  these  works  it  would  be   dis-respectful  to  her  uncle. This was  a  legacy  he  left  to  his  family, who  have  the  right  to  decide  the  fate  of  there  property. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.33.133.183 (talk • contribs) 21 June 2006

What I fail to understand is why Maria Altmann was so keen to have the paintings taken out of the Belvedere in the first place. She says: "It was always the wish of my uncle and aunt to make their collection available to the public." But they were already available to the public, in Vienna. She then gave them to a museum in Los Angeles, saying: "In gratitude to the city and county of Los Angeles, which provided me a home when I fled the Nazis, and whose courts enabled me to recover my family's paintings at long last, I am very pleased that these wonderful paintings will be seen [in LA]." But that gratitude evidently didn't last long because she has now sold "Adele Bloch-Bauer I" to a museum in New York. I'm not disputing Altmann's legal right to own the paintings. But she should have left them where they belong, in Vienna. --Richardrj 08:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * She initially wanted the paintings to remain in Vienna, however the government should have given her the compensation which was her right. She offered a settlement to the government, even wrote a letter to the minister, which was never answered. The government simply ignored her offer for years, waiting instead for her to go through court and basically hoping that she would simply die with her 90 years. and so in that way the "problem" would have solved itself "naturally". Well too bad for the government for being so stupid and ignoring her reasonable offer. They rode this thing all the way and didn't want to give her anything, and basically lost everything, this serves Austria right. After she won her case, the government all of a sudden wanted to reach a settlement with her to buy some of the paintings back. At that point she said she was done talking to the government after trying for years to come to a settlement. I think it only right that the lady took the paintings out of the country since the Austrian government was too stupid and dumb to have come to an agreement with her earlier. The government was heavily criticised by the opposition for failing to have secured an agreement earlier. Gryffindor  07:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Austrias position of the time is distorted in your comment (and not even mentioned in the article). Their legal position was that because Adele Bloch-Bauer (the initial owner) stated in her last will that the paintings should stay in the "Galerie Belvedere" after the death of her husband (this statement itself is undisputed) there was no case for paying the $300.000.000 restitiution Maria Altmann asked for. The position of Maria Altmanns lawyers was that this passage in the will merely constituted a non-binding wish. The Austrian grovernment also held the view that the appropriate country to settle the issue in court would have been Austria. The US supreme court however declared US courts responsible to rule about passages of a will given in another country where legal means existed and were open to Mrs. Altmann and ultimately the painting ended up in the US (in contradiction to Adele Bloch-Bauer's will). So the US courts degraded themself to being a tool in expropriating another government of some important art. Only under the threat of having its assets in the US frozen the Austrian government gave in to this unprecedented extortion to which it (being only a small country) had no defense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.125.114 (talk) 15:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

To gain an alternative perspective on the Austrian government's tactics in this and comparable restitution cases, readers may wish to see the New York Times obituary of Maria Altmann, now cited in the main article.Nandt1 (talk) 13:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC) Further, a relatively detailed account of the evidence presented to the US courts -- including details of the conduct of the Austrian Government in this case which were not challenged in court and which make frankly rather shocking reading -- is contained in the US Supreme Court's official verdict, now accessible from the main article.Nandt1 (talk) 19:59, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

The article states that "A large amount of the money earned through the sale of the pictures was used to found the Maria Altmann Family Foundation". The foundation has assets of ~1m USD, so I think the claim that "a large amount of the money" can't really be upheld. In any case, this classification sound apologetic. Should we just remove this hint or edit it to "A part of the money..."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.178.165.173 (talk) 21:41, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

binding or non-binding?
The article says "Altmann and Austria entered non-binding arbitration. On 16 January 2006, the arbitration court ruled that Austria is legally required to return the art to Altmann. Because both sides agreed to abide by the ruling of the arbitrator, Austria has returned the works."

If both sides agreed to abide by the ruling, then surely it IS binding? Or am I missing something? DavidFarmbrough 16:16, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

The New York Times obituary is clear that the arbitration was binding. I've amended the article to reflect this. Nandt1 (talk) 13:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)