Dutch museum will pay $240K to owners of Nazi-looted painting it won’t return
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A Dutch museum will compensate the rightful owners of a Nazi-looted painting the government said it could keep because displaying it would benefit the public interest.
Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle has agreed to give $240,000 to the descendants of Jewish Holocaust victims who under duress sold the 1635 painting “Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well” by Bernardo Strozzi, the Noordhollands Dagblad reported Monday. It has not been assessed, thus its value is unknown.
The painting, which was sold by Richard Semmel of Berlin, is one of several artworks that the Dutch government’s Restitutions Committee has acknowledged as looted art. The committee holds, however, that the museums should be allowed to keep and display the paintings because the public’s right to have access to the culturally significant works outweighs the interests of the rightful owners.
This approach, which is unique among countries that say they are interested in resolving ownership issues among Nazi-looted art, has exposed the Netherlands to international scrutiny and criticism.
It risks “turning the Netherlands from a leader in art restitution to a pariah,” restitution expert Anne Webber and Wesley Fisher, the director of research for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, wrote last year in an op-ed.
The best-known looted item on display in the Netherlands is “Painting with Houses” by Wassily Kandinsky, whose worth is valued at $20 million at least. Amsterdam’s municipal museum, Stedelijk, acknowledges it was looted but has not offered to compensate the rightful owners, who have sued the museum and lost.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
