Breakthrough in Art Case
Heirs of a Dutch Jewish art dealer whose paintings were looted by the Nazis will get most of them back. The Dutch Culture Ministry announced this week that 202 of 267 paintings claimed by the survivors of Jacques Goudstikker would be handed over, while the rest would remain with their current owners because it could not be proved that they belonged to the art dealer when he fled the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940. Goudstikker’s daughter-in-law, Marei von Saher, hailed the decision as a breakthrough in a decades-old reclamation battle. Many of the paintings mentioned in the suit now hang in 17 museums throughout the Netherlands.