Dutch Royals Plan To Return Looted Art Work

Queen Juliana of Holland in a 1979 photo. Image by getty images

By JTA March 31, 2015

The Dutch royal family contacted the heirs of a Nazi-looted painting’s owners as a step toward restitution.

Queen Juliana had purchased the painting from a Dutch art dealer in 1960, according to independent research commissioned by the palace in 2012, the French news agency AFP reported. It was not known at the time that the painting, by the Dutch master Joris van der Haagen, had been stolen from its original Dutch Jewish owners in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands.

The investigation found that another painting in the royal collection whose provenance was in question was not stolen.

The family was not named.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO