For the Greens, whose support tops off at 15% of the electorate, transparency at the Leopold Foundation would be a step toward addressing Austria’s Nazi past. "The Green Party is interested in a correct relation to history," says Wolfgang Zinggl, the party’s spokesman on culture in the Austrian parliament, who admitted that historical accountability doesn’t rally most Austrians. Still, says Jane Kallir of Galerie St. Etienne in New York, who has followed restitution disputes in New York and Vienna, "I really think the political climate is turning against Leopold very strongly."

Meanwhile, the Leopold Foundation is embroiled in litigation in New York. In U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the Justice Department and the heirs of a Viennese art dealer are seeking to recover Schiele’s "Portrait of Wally," a picture the Nazis seized in 1939 from art dealer Lea Bondi Jaray. "Wally" was spotted in 1997 when the Leopold Foundation loaned the exhibition "Egon Schiele: The Leopold Collection, Vienna" to the Museum of Modern Art. In 1999, the New York State Court overruled Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s 1998 subpoena of the painting, and the dispute has been in federal court since then. This past March, both sides in the case filed motions for summary judgment, asking for an immediate decision from the judge, after attempts to mediate the case failed. Bondi family supporters attribute the case’s marathon length to Leopold’s intransigence. "He’s attached to these paintings as other people are attached to their children or to their dog," notes veteran German art researcher Willi Korte.

The 10-year war of attrition is culminating in a face-off that could bring a ruling by the end of the year. "I think it’s a foregone conclusion that ‘Wally’ is coming back to the Bondis at this point, on everybody’s part, including the Austrians," says one insider. The "Wally" effect will travel back to Vienna even if the painting does not. If Leopold loses, claimants and the Greens could cite new cause for a probe into his collection, and Leopold’s supporters would likely grumble about being under siege from Americans. If "Wally" is allowed to return to the Leopold Museum, the restitution waltz could begin a slower movement.