Dutch Government to Return Art

Catherine Hickley of Bloomberg is reporting the Dutch government will return 13 paintings that are in museums to the rightful heirs. This included a Jan van Goyen’s “Village in Winter Time” (see image). During the Nazi occupation, many collections, particularly from the Jewish community were looted and illegally taken. Many paintings were returned to the Dutch government by the allies after the war, and eventually ended up in Dutch museums. In 2002 a restitution committee was established and so far 75 cases have been settled.

The group of 12 paintings were shown to actually have been stored in a museum for safe keeping and then purchased during the German occupation. The records show the funds from the purchase were given to the family. Therefore the restitution committee required the family heirs to pay $464,000.00 to recover the paintings. With the 13th painting, there was no evidence of purchase or funds given to the family, and the property was returned outright to the heirs.

There were also claims that were rejected or are still pending. Progress is being made in returning art to the rightful owners, but the process is very slow.

Hickey reports

Separately, the committee rejected a claim for 31 works of art that the descendants of gallery owners Nathan and Benjamin Katz said may have been looted by the Nazis.

Heirs including Sybilla Goldstein-Katz, the daughter of Nathan Katz, filed for the return of 227 items in March 2007. The committee cited a lack of proof of ownership as the reason for its decision to reject the claim for 31 works, including paintings by Frans Hals and Salomon van Ruysdael.

A decision on the remaining works in the Katz claim isn’t expected before next year, said Evelien Campfens, a spokeswoman for the Restitutions Committee. The panel said it decided to split the investigation into two parts to reach a speedier ruling on artworks claimed by more than one party. Both the Van Goyen painting returned to Larsen and the De Keyser portrait returned to Semmel also were claimed by the Katz heirs.

To read the full Bloomberg report, click HERE.