Paintings looted by the Nazis during World War Two and retrieved by the Monuments Men, the Allied group tasked with returning masterpieces to their rightful owners, will be sold at auction on Thursday in New York. The works, which will go under the hammer during Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture, were…
Cornelius Gurlitt, whose hidden collection of classic artworks stunned the world last fall, has signaled he may be ready to talk about restituting some works to their rightful heirs. Attorney Hannes Hartung told The Wall Street Journal Jan. 24 that: “We want to take responsibility.” But he added that “very few” of the 1,400 works…
A French woman is suing the University of Oklahoma to recover a Nazi-looted painting that was taken from her father. Leone Meyer, the daughter of Raoul Meyer, a Jewish businessman in Paris during the Nazi occupation of France, is attempting to recover the 1886 impressionist work “Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep,” by Camille Pissarro, the Oklahoman…
An Israeli organization that recovers Jewish assets stolen by the Nazis said hundreds of items in Israeli museums may have been looted. Hashava: The Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ Assets said Wednesday that hundreds of paintings, items of Judaica and other artworks in Israeli museums may be Nazi-looted art. Hashava was set…
Two artworks hanging in Germany’s parliament building in Berlin may have been confiscated or acquired at artificially depressed prices by the Nazis from the original owners, German newspapers reported. The news was first reported by Germany’s Bild newspaper. Further investigation by the Die Welt newspaper suggests that one of the works coincidentally stems from a…
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…
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