The watercolor painting isn’t big – 3 by 5 inches. But the sentimental and historical value made its return to the family worth the effort it get it back to its rightful owner.
Jackie Sondell was presented with the painting that had belonged to the father of her uncle’s wife, Eduard Epstein, in a ceremony Wednesday afternoon. Austrian Deputy Consul General Johannes Gassner traveled to Minnesota from New York to make the presentation of an 1847 watercolor miniature of Carl Graf Gleispach, painted by Albert Theer. Sondell and her brother, Jeff Lieb, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, are the successors to the artwork as Eduard Epstein’s daughter, Helen, and her husband Ernest had no children.
“It’s totally amazing that it came back to the Epstein family. I wish they were alive to see this,” Jackie Sondell said after the painting was presented.
A close-up of the front (left) and back of the painting of Carl Graf Gleispach, painted by Albert Theer. (Lonny Goldsmith/TC Jewfolk).
Gassner said that Gleispach was a soldier in the Imperial Army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The research found that he was of nobility – a count – which is why there would’ve been a painting made of him in the first place. It had been on display in the country’s military history museum.
Austria’s Art Restitution Act of 1998 – later amended in 2009 and 2023 – requires that the original owners or their legal successors be returned art or other objects in the collections of Austrian federal museums, the national library and the Bundesmobiliendepot which were acquired by the state during the Nazi regime and not yet returned. As part of that law, the items in national museums were examined to investigate how they ended up in the museum in the first place.
Gassner said that such restitution ceremonies are rare.
“It’s not very often that we get to gift back an art piece that was looted, stolen by Nazis,” he said. “It’s an important gesture for Austria’s efforts to take responsibility for its role in the Holocaust and the crimes and atrocities committed by the Nazi regime in general.
“This is monumental.”
Kurt Witte, the honorary consul representative in Minnesota, said the research shows the value of the painting is more symbolic than economic. However, he added that the story behind Epstein’s other artwork that he owned is more complex.
“A significant amount of the art collection that Eduard Epstein had was seized in Trieste, Italy, from a container,” he said. “We don’t know where it went from there, and those items were probably quite a bit more valuable than this piece of art in terms of economic value.”
What complicates any potential recovery of the broader collection is that countries like Germany or Holland don’t have laws like Austria’s that dictate the return of items that the Nazis had seized, looted, or “acquired.”
Sondell said that she has been told conflicting stories about the painting. Epstein had the painting on him in 1940 prior to leaving Austria for the United States. Because of the size, it was easy to keep on him, while the rest of the belongings were getting shipped out. He was arrested for having the painting on him and was in jail for nine months.
“Now they claim it was because he tried to sell everything,” Sondell said. “So I don’t know which is which.”
The verification of Sondell and Lieb as the rightful heirs isn’t an easy one. According to Sondell’s daughter-in-law, Sandy, the artwork was labeled with Eduard Epstein’s name. However, there were three men with that name, which required eliminating the other two as possibilities.
“They do a really diligent job of making sure you are the rightful owner,” Sandy Sondell said. She said that one of the facts that pinpointed the correct Eduard was finding the criminal record of him having been arrested. His family was affluent with a business in Vienna, until suddenly, they couldn’t be Jewish in Austria.
“That’s when people started saying, ‘What are we going to do? We have to declare and say that we own all these things, and they’re going to take everything from us,’” she said. “They had taken his business. He went, maybe sort of to try undercover, to sell something, and that’s when he got caught.”
Gassner confirmed the process, saying that it was made a little easier by Epstein being in the Nazi records as “Eduard Israel Epstein.” One of the others was not in Austria very long, while the other was of “mixed race, and therefore did not have to carry Israel as his name,” he said,
Jackie Sondell was surprised that this one, very small piece, was the only one of Epstein’s collection that was found.
“It’s a message to me. It’s a message from God in some way. I take it that way,” Jackie Sondell said. “I know it sounds a little bizarre, but why would a military picture from Austria be sent back in the year 2026?
“I see it as a symbol of hope, because unless you forgive, there will never be a change in this world. And if you keep having grudges and saying, “Well, this happened to me and that happened to me, and you don’t stop and think, ‘Okay, if we forgive, maybe the world will see things in a different way.’ It’s just a token of hope and forgiveness.”
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