Landscape stolen by Nazis is expected to fetch £7m at auction

A landscape painting by Egon Schiele that was looted from its Jewish owners by the Nazis is expected to fetch up to £7m when it is offered for sale at Sotheby's in London in June. The 1916 work, Krumauer Landschaft (Stadt und Fluss) – View of Krumau – was recently handed to the heirs of the Viennese art collectors Willy and Daisy Hellmann, from whom the painting was seized in 1938.

The Nazis put the work up for sale in 1942 and 11 years later it was sold on to the Neue Galerie in Linz, where it remained on public display until this year. It was given to its rightful owners after research by Sotheby's.

Erika Jakubovits, executive director of the Presidency of the Jewish Community of Austria, said: "Sixty years on [from the Holocaust], it is important to recognise the enduring rights of victims and their heirs."