[MSN] An Albin Egger-Lienz painting that the Nazis once seized from its original owner fetched a record $1.17 million at an auction in Vienna, with the proceeds to go to an heir in Southern California.

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May. 31, 200
Painting looted by Nazis fetches $1.17 million for SoCal heir
Associated Press

VIENNA, Austria - An Albin Egger-Lienz painting that the Nazis once seized
from its original owner fetched a record $1.17 million at an auction in
Vienna, with the proceeds to go to an heir in Southern California.

"Totentanz 1809," or "Dance of Death 1809," was auctioned off Tuesday
evening at Vienna's Dorotheum, where a spokeswoman said only that an
Austrian man in his 40s was the highest bidder. His name was not released.

The proceeds will go to Herta Fox of Los Angeles, a descendant of the
Austrian Jewish family who owned the work before the Nazis confiscated it
during World War II. The painting resurfaced after the war and ended up in
the collection of a museum in the southwestern city of Lienz, where
officials agreed to return it.

The painting was the latest by a famed Austrian artist to be restored in
recent months under a 1998 restitution law mandating the return of art
looted by the Nazis from owners, most of whom were Jewish.

In January, an arbitration court ordered Vienna's Belvedere Gallery to
return five paintings by Gustav Klimt with an estimated value of $300
million to Maria Altmann of Beverly Hills.

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