Bloomberg is reporting that the Netherlands has returned a Jan Brueghel the Younger oil painting (see image) to the heirs of a Jewish art dealer from whom it was confiscated from. “Allegory of Life and Water” by Brueghel (1601-1678) was owned by Dusseldorf art dealer Max Stern. Stern was forced to liquidate his gallery of over 200 old master paintings. The heirs filed a claim with a restitution panel three years ago, and this past May the panel found the painting was illegally taken and granted its full return.
Bloomberg reports
To read the Bloomberg article, click HERE.“It is important to continue to contemplate the World War II period, pose questions from a current perspective and make restitution where possible,” Judith van Kranendonk, a Dutch Culture Ministry official, said in an e-mailed statement sent before a ceremony today in The Hague to return the painting.
The Nazis stole countless artworks from across Europe -- at least 650,000, according to estimates. After the war, the Allies handed the looted works whose rightful owners could not be identified to the government of the presumed country of origin. In the Netherlands, the returned artworks -- among them, the Brueghel painting -- entered the National Art Collection.
The Netherlands was one of 44 countries that, in 1998, endorsed international principles on returning art stolen from the mainly Jewish collectors who were victims of Adolf Hitler’s regime. To implement the guidelines, the Dutch government founded a Restitutions Committee in 2002. The panel since has made recommendations on 93 claims for art in state hands.
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