The Wall Street Journal covers the restitution paintings that will be sold this week in London:
On Tuesday, Christie’s is selling “The White House,” an 1885 Paul Gauguin painting of a bucolic cottage. It follows a settlement between the relatives of the Earl of Jersey, who bought the work in 1943 in London, and the heirs of Berlin-based collector Richard Semmel, who lost possession of the work during the war. […] “Olive Groves with Les Alpilles in the Background,” a Vincent van Gogh drawing, hangs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mr. Lauder donated it after paying $8.6 million at Sotheby’s in 1999.
The work came from the collection of Max Silberberg, whose heirs are also selling the highlight of Sotheby’s upcoming auction: “Boulevard Montmartre, Spring Morning.” The 1897 Camille Pissarro painting was donated to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem by John Loeb, a New York-based collector who bought the work in 1960, unaware of its forced sale in 1935.
