Canada Museum To Return Nazi-Looted Old Master
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A Canadian art museum said it will return a Nazi-looted painting to the heirs of its German Jewish owners.
The Art Gallery of Hamilton in Ontario announced it will return “Portrait of a Lady,” a 17th-century painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Verspronck, CBC Hamilton reported.
The Nazis stole the painting in 1940 from Alma Salomonsohn. In 1987, the Hamilton museum, unaware of the painting’s original ownership, bought it for $58,000.
The museum’s decision comes after 10 years of negotiations to prove the authenticity of the Salomonsohn family’s claim.
Sarah Solmssen, Salomonsohn’s great-great-granddaughter, told CBC Hamilton that her great-great-grandmother, who died in 1961, had unsuccessfully searched for the painting after World War II.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
