The Courthouse News Service has this story about a man who tried to sell his Old Master work through Christie’s and found out it had been owned by Herman Goering:
Brooks claims that in 2004 Sotheby’s sold him the “Allegorical Portrait of a Lady as Diana Wounded by Cupid,” by 18th century French artist Louis-Michel van Loo.
But because the art work may be assumed to have been acquired illegally by Goering, the founder of the Gestapo, neither Sotheby’s nor Christie’s will touch the work, and Sotheby’s refuses to refund his money, Brooks says in the complaint.
Brooks says he asked Christie’s to sell the work for him in 2010. Only then, he says, did he learn about its Nazi past – information Sotheby’s had either failed to acquire or failed to share with him.
He claims Christie’s declined the consignment when its own research led to question how Goering got the work.
Man Claims Sotheby’s Sold Him Nazi Art (Courthouse News Service)
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