Looking a bit like St. Peter crucified upside down, nine not-yet-plucked chickens dangle from hooks in a storefront window; the alignment of their bound feet evokes hamsas. There’s no warding off the evil eye for these upturned chickens, whose tail feathers are naughtily exposed, or for the two others, which are violently suspended by their…
(JTA) — Jazz music drifts from speakers down to the cherry wood tables of the West Cafe in Brooklyn as the Israeli artist Nurit Bar-Shai prepares to show examples of her latest work. With deft, freckled hands, she opens a manila envelope and slides three petri dishes across the table. In the dishes are billions…
A Jewish family may proceed with its legal battle to recover a valuable painting surrendered to the Nazis following a ruling by a U.S. appeals court on lost artwork. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday reinstated a California law allowing lawsuits to recover artwork lost as long as 100…
When news of a hidden trove of Nazi-looted art in Munich came to light this month, an 87-year-old man in a quiet retirement community in New Jersey straightened a copy of a Rembrandt self-portrait hanging on his wall, completely unsurprised. The picture is a constant reminder to Harry Ettlinger of his days with the “Monuments…
The Viennese museum that houses one of Gustav Klimt’s greatest artworks says it has evidence that its previous Jewish owner sold it to the Austrian state in an amicable transaction, rather than too cheaply under duress. The Secession museum is defending itself against a claim from some of the heirs of art collector Erich Lederer,…
The recent revelation that German authorities discovered a treasure trove of presumed-lost masterpieces of art in the dingy apartment of a Nazi art dealer’s son has reignited the complicated issue of reparations almost 50 years after Germany declared its job of restitution complete. Though the legal ramifications are byzantine, it appears that officials have a…
(JTA) — The extraordinary disclosure last week that a trove of more than 1,400 vanished artworks were found in a Munich apartment has raised more questions than it has answered. What were these works, which were produced by masters such as Chagall, Matisse and Picasso? Who are their rightful owners? And where is Cornelius Gurlitt,…
Germany began publishing an online list on Tuesday of works that were discovered in a huge art stash in a Munich flat last year and believed for the most part to have been stolen or extorted by the Nazis. The move was welcomed by lawyers representing families whose looted art was feared forever gone. But…
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