The Remnants of Restitution

Reuters focuses on an exhibition of Old Master paintings, some 50 in all, going up at the Jewish Museum in New York this weekend:

The paintings once belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam who died in 1940 fleeing the Nazi invasion of Holland. The exhibit marks the first time since the war they have been displayed as his collection.

After Goudstikker’s death, 800 paintings in his collection were appropriated by Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command, Hermann Goering, some for his private collection as well as some that he gave to Hitler, according to the Jewish Museum.

In 2006, the Dutch government returned 200 of the paintings to Goudstikker’s daughter-in-law and sole heir, Marei von Saher, after a legal battle that lasted nearly 10 years. [ . . . ]

Goudstikker was one of the most important art dealers in Europe between the first and second world wars, according to Karen Levitov, the associate curator at the Jewish Museum.

He sold to major museums and collectors in both Europe and the United States and at the time of his death, his collection numbered about 1,400 paintings.

The rest of the 1200 works remain at large still.

US Museum Exhibits Old Master Paintings Looted by Nazis (Reuters)