Nazis looted this Austrian portrait. Now it’s displayed in a Minneapolis museum.

It’s so tiny that you might walk right past it without noticing: A 2-inch-by-3-inch 1847 watercolor portrait of a virtually unknown officer in the Austrian Empire’s army. But its story is as big and powerful as the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), where it is on display through May. For many years, the tiny portrait by Albert Theer, an obscure Austrian painter, languished at the Museum of Military History in Vienna ― until the Austrian government discovered Nazis stole it from Eduard Epstein, a Jewish merchant in Vienna. That meant the painting was subject to restitution. In August, the Austrian government returned it to siblings Jackie Sondell, 78, of Wayzata, and Jeff Lieb, of Lake Forest, Ill. — Epstein’s heirs. Advertisement After news of the restitution spread, Mia contacted Sondell to exhibit it at the museum’s third-floor Judaica Gallery. Curators thought its presence would help continue conversations sparked by “Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945,” which was on view at Mia earlier this year. Expanded image view The watercolor miniature portrait is on view in Mia's Judaica Gallery. ( Alicia Eler/The Minnesota Star Tribune ) “It seemed like a great opportunity to ... think about how issues of Nazi looting and repatriation and restitution were relevant to our local community ― to have this story about someone in our community who, sort of as a surprise, received this restituted object from a relative’s collection,” said Galina Olmsted, Mia’s associate curator of European art. Expanded image view The painting once owned by Jewish merchant Eduard Epstein is now on view in Mia's Judaica Gallery on the third floor. ( Alicia Eler/The Minnesota Star Tribune ) Although the painting had only been in Sondell’s possession for a short time ― and she lived in the Chicago suburbs until about nine years ago — she felt that the piece belonged in Minnesota. “The picture was sent 86 years later,” Sondell said of the work, which was stolen in 1940. “It’s just too bizarre.”