Nazi loot

Yet again, a US court dismisses Nazi-era Guelph Treasure art lawsuit

The descendants of the €200m collection's Jewish former owners had appealed a 2022 regional court ruling

Hackers attack Nazi-linked collection exhibition at Kunsthaus Zurich

Visitors who accessed text via QR codes saw collector Emil Georg Bührle described as “a Nazi sympathiser, authoritarian militarist, at the very least a war profiteer and probably a war criminal”

Lempertz to sell Max Pechstein self-portrait following settlement with Jewish doctor's heirs

The painting was pulled from a sale in June following reports it was sold under duress in 1936 by Walter Blank, who died in Spain while fleeing Nazi Germany

German restitution commission recommends Bavarian bank return Kandinsky painting to heirs of former Jewish owners

Kandinsky’s "A Colorful Life" (1907), which had belonged to collectors Emanuel and Hedwig Lewenstein, was sold in a 1940 Amsterdam auction

MFA Boston settles ownership dispute with Jewish dealers’ heirs over a painting Hitler wanted for his Führermuseum

"Customers Conversing in a Tavern" (1671) by Dutch Golden Age painter Adriaen van Ostade is up on display after a six years of research and negotiations

German city restitutes a Renoir to the heirs of a Jewish banker and buys it back

View of the Sea from Haut Cagnes will in future be displayed with information about its former owner, Jakob Goldschmidt

France's long-awaited restitution policy is finally here

Guidelines for returning objects looted from former colonies and during the Nazi period are laid out in a report commissioned by Emmanuel Macron and written by former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez

Dusseldorf settles with Jewish dealer’s heirs on portrait that hung in mayor's office

Wilhelm von Schadow’s painting 'The Artist’s Children' was once owned by Max Stern, who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s

Appeals court judges hear latest argument in Nazi-era Guelph Treasure restitution claim

Heirs of the dealers who sold the collection of medieval artefacts to the Prussian government claim their case can be heard in US court because the dealers were not German citizens at the time of the sale

Gauguin, Renoir and Cézanne works restituted by Musée d'Orsay head to auction at Sotheby's

Four works recently returned to heirs of the influential French dealer Ambroise Vollard will go under the hammer in New York next month

Has New York's law aimed at identifying Nazi-looted art in museums worked?

Recent legislation requires institutions to label works they display that was stolen by the Nazis, but some are still unwilling to publish their provenance research

Courbet painting—seized by the Nazis and owned by a reverend—to be returned to its original owners

The forest landscape, La Ronde Enfantine, will be returned by the Fitzwilliam Museum, UK, to the heirs of Robert Bing

Musée D'Orsay ordered by Paris court to return four masterpieces by Renoir, Cézanne and Gauguin stolen during Second World War

The works were owned by influential French dealer Ambroise Vollard and will be returned to his heirs

Art from persecuted Jewish dealer draws scrutiny at National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC

Findings about the provenance of two Old Master drawings in the museum’s collection may test the pro-restitution stance recently adopted at US national institutions

Diaryblog

The curious case of Madonna and the missing Old Master

Mayor of Amiens in France asks pop star to loan work believed to be by Jérôme-Martin Langlois, spotted in a photograph of her home

Restituted Kandinsky painting lost in the Holocaust could sell for $45m

The painting, which was the subject of a decade-long provenance dispute, will go up for sale at Sotheby’s London in March

French court orders Christie's to restitute a Nazi-looted painting sold in London

As the panel was looted in Paris, the magistrates claimed jurisdiction of the French courts over the High Court in London

Christie's marks 25 years of the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art

Auction house kicked off its year-long restitution programme in Paris last week which aims to educate collectors and buyers

Was Van Gogh's olive grove landscape another Nazi-era 'forced sale'?

We uncover the tangled tale of the painting controversially sold off by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 and now in an Athens museum

Jewish collectors’ heirs sue the Guggenheim for return of Blue Period Picasso

The heirs of Karl and Rosi Adler claim “Woman Ironing (La repasseuse)” (1904) was sold under duress by the fleeing couple and are seeking its return—or as much as $200m in compensation

The Van Gogh Sunflowers lawsuit: the full story behind the Nazi-loot claim to Tokyo’s $250m painting

Plus, Singapore’s art hub ambitions and Grace Lau's project for Chinese New Year

Hosted by Ben Luke. With guest speakers Martin Bailey and Georgina Adam. Produced by David Clack and Aimee Dawson
Sponsored byChristie's

Van Gogh's Tokyo Sunflowers: Was it a Nazi forced sale? And is the painting now worth $250m?

Bought for a Japanese museum in 1987, the masterpiece has just been claimed by the heirs of a Jewish Berlin banker

Did the Metropolitan Museum cover up its acquisition of a Nazi-looted Van Gogh? A new lawsuit alleges so

The heirs of a Jewish collector who fled Germany in the 1930s claim that well-documented provenance issues with the painting “La cueillette des olives” have been overlooked by the museum and the Greek foundation that now owns it

Seeking return of Van Gogh Sunflowers painting sold under Nazi coercion, German Jewish banker's heirs sue Japanese insurance company

The banker's heirs claim that the current owner, which bought "Sunflowers" for a then-record $39.9m at Christie's in 1987, ignored the painting's provenance issues

Nazi-looted art on display in New York museums must be prominently identified as such under new law

The new state regulation, signed into law by Governor Hochul, requires museums to install placards or other signage alongside works on view that were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War

Could one of these lost Van Goghs—which disappeared during the Nazi period—be hidden in your attic?

These five missing paintings might still survive—possibly looted and secreted away

a blog by Martin Bailey

Was UK museum's Courbet landscape stolen in Nazi-occupied France for Hitler’s deputy?

Now in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum, a restitution claim for the work has been submitted to the Spoliation Advisory Panel

US Supreme Court sends dispute over Nazi-looted Pissarro back to California court, reopening door for restitution claim

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan, revolved around the question of which jurisdiction’s law to apply in cases where a foreign government is sued in US court

Israel Museum in Jerusalem sued by Jewish heirs of Holocaust victim over valuable manuscript

The case of the Birds' Head Haggadah is the first time a museum in Israel has faced a restitution lawsuit for an object allegedly lost in the Holocaust