CLAE News
On 25 June 2024, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe announced the restitution of ‘Odalisque’ by Henri Matisse to the heirs of Albert Stern (1861-1945) whom the Commission represents. The painting has been in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam since 19 July 1941 when it was sold under duress by Albert Stern in an ultimately failed effort to save the lives of all his family. The Dutch Restitutions Committee today published its binding opinion that the painting should be returned to the heirs. The Committee stated that the investigation conducted by the Commission for Looted Art in Europe conclusively demonstrated that the family was subjected to persecution from 1933 onwards, first in Germany where they lived and then from 1937 in the Netherlands where they had fled and where they were gradually stripped of their possessions and their livelihood. They made several unsuccessful efforts to escape and eventually were forced to sell their remaining possessions to try to survive. Most of the family including Albert Stern and his two sons did not survive. Please see Press Release below or as a PDF here. The Binding Opinion of the Restitutions Commission is available here in Dutch (and as a PDF here) and here in English (and as a PDF here). The Press Release of the Restitutions Committee is here
On 4 June 2024, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe and the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion announced that a restitution claim by the heirs of Dr Victor Wallerstein for a painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Otto Müller Playing Chess (Erich Heckel und Otto Müller beim Schach), 1913, in the Brücke-Museum Berlin had been agreed and that the painting would stay in the museum. The painting had been subject to a forced sale by its owner Dr Victor Wallerstein (1978-1944) in Italy in c.1940 and had been acquired by the museum in 1973. Dr Wallerstein was an important art historian, collector and patron of modern artists, who founded the Galerie Goldschmidt-Wallerstein in Berlin in 1919 with Dr Fritz Goldschmidt. Forced to close the gallery in 1934, he sought refuge in Italy in 1936, only to be subjected to further persecution there. Arrested by the SS, he subsequently died in 1944. See joint press release below and as a PDF here in English and here in German.
On 17 June 2023, David Lewis and Anne Webber, the co-founders and co-chairs of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, were each awarded a CBE in King Charles's first Birthday Honours List for 'services to the Return of Looted Art'. In a short statement, they said how much they appreciated the great honour and recognition of their work, and in particular the acknowledgement of the importance of restitution. One of the United Kingdom's highest honours, the CBE - Commander of the Order of the British Empire - is awarded to individuals with a prominent role who have made a distinguished and innovative contribution.
On 13 June 2022, the Commission announced the restitution from a private German collection of Portrait of Steven Wolters by the Dutch Old Master Caspar Netscher. Dating to 1683, the painting was looted from the Amsterdam Bank in Arnhem in January 1945 and was returned to Mrs Charlotte Bischoff von Heemskerck, the 101-year-old surviving daughter of the late owner, Dr. J. H. Smidt van Gelder (1887-1969), director of the Children’s Hospital of Arnhem, The Netherlands. This is the second painting of Dr Smidt van Gelder's to be traced and restituted as a result of the Commission's work, the first being Jacob Ochtervelt's The Oyster Meal, restituted by the City of London Corporation in 2017. See press release below and here and news articles below.
On 14 September 2021, the Commission jointly with the Bundesarchiv, Koblenz, and the BFI London, announced the restitution and world premiere screening at the 65th BFI London Film Festival of Europa, a 1931 anti-fascist avant-garde masterpiece by Stefan and Franciszka Themerson, long presumed destroyed by the Nazis after its seizure in Paris in 1940.
Re-discovered by chance in the Bundesarchiv, Berlin, in 2019, and on behalf of the Themerson estate, the Commission for Looted Art in Europe negotiated the restitution of the film from the Bundesarchiv which had preserved the original nitrate film since the reunification of Germany in the 1990s. The restitution of Europa in July 2021 is the first time a unique film masterpiece has been restituted from Germany in decades. Europa has now been donated by the Themerson Estate to the BFI National Archive for long term preservation.
Fully restored in 2K, Europa will receive its world premiere at the 65th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express on Wednesday 6 October at BFI Southbank, the first time that the film has been seen since the early 1930s.
A startling prescient outcry against the rise of fascism in Europe, based on Polish poet Anatol Stern’s 1925 futurist poem of the same name, Europa utilises an incredible array of avant-garde film techniques; photograms, collages and repetitions to translate words into a montage of images and ideas that articulate the horror, inequality and moral decline that the artists witnessed from Poland, with Europe at the edge of a precipice. It was among the greatest achievements of European avant-garde film of the time.
Please see press release below and here.
On 18 November 2020 the Commission jointly with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada (AGO) announced the restitution of Still Life with Flowers by Jan van Kessel the Elder to the heirs of Dagobert and Martha David. In March 2020, the Commission made the restitution claim on behalf of the family, providing compelling evidence that the painting had formerly belonged to the family who had fled Germany to Belgium in 1939 only to be trapped there, forced to live in hiding under the German occupation and to sell their possessions in order to survive. Following the painting’s forced sale in Brussels, it was traded through Amsterdam and Berlin before it was acquired by the dealer Wildenstein & Co. in London, England. A Canadian purchased the painting from Wildenstein in the early 1950s and donated it to the AGO in 1995. To see the press release, click here.
Anne Webber, Co-Chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, said: 'We were very pleased to assist the heirs to recover these wonderful drawings which reflect the remarkable vision of Max and Hertha Morgenstern. The drawings have extraordinary, powerful imagery and reflect a world of emotion, of darkness and light. Alfred Kubin, a founder member of Der Blaue Reiter, a friend of Paul Klee, an artist who was drawn to the philosophy of Schopenhauer, created works that agonised over the human condition, his two most frequent themes being death and the eternal wanderer. Regarded today as one of the great artists of the 20th century, Kubin's close relationship with the Morgensterns is testament to their artistic and creative judgement.'
To see the restituted drawings, click here.
On 19th and 20th June 2019 the sixteen drawings were sold at Sotheby's London where they achieved world record prices for Kubin works. To see the cataloguing of the works, click here for 'Epidemie' `and here for the other drawings.
Earlier press releases from June 2016 and 14 July 2016 are available here and here respectively.
In February 2018, a Max Liebermann painting, Gartenlokal an der Havel unter Bäumen, from the collection of Dagobert and Martha David of Dusseldorf, was identified as consigned for sale to Van Ham Kunstauktionen in Cologne, Germany, by the estate of Friedrich Wilhelm Waffenschmidt of Cologne, who had acquired the painting in 1984 at Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne. The painting was sold at Lempertz by another local collector Walter Franz. Prior to Walter Franz the painting was in the ownership of Hildebrand Gurlitt until at least the mid 1950s The painting had been sold under duress by Martha David in Belgium during the war. Following an amicable settlement, the painting was sold at Van Ham on 30 May 2018. To read the Van Ham press release, click here.
On 6 November 2017, in a ceremony at The Mansion House, London, the official residence of the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the Lord Mayor on behalf of the City of London Corporation restituted Jacob Ochtervelt's 'The Oyster Meal' to Mrs Charlotte Bischoff von Heemskerck, the 96 year old surviving daughter of the late owner, Dr. J. H. Smidt van Gelder, director of the Children’s Hospital of Arnhem, The Netherlands. The 17th century painting, looted in 1945, was the subject of a restitution claim submitted by the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, with extensive supporting documentation, earlier this year. CLAE's research traced the previously unknown history of The Oyster Meal between its disappearance in January 1945 and its reappearance on the art market in Switzerland in 1965. For full details, see the Press Release jointly issued by the City of London Corporation and the Commission.
On 12 September 2017 the UK government hosted an international conference in London with the title '70 Years and Counting: The Final Opportunity?'. Organised by the UK Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Spoliation Advisory Panel and the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which was also the sponsor, the conference aimed at increasing efforts to return Nazi-looted art to its original owners. The UK government announced that it would extend the power of UK museums to return Nazi-looted art to its rightful owners indefinitely and called for stronger efforts from the international community to accelerate the processes of identification and return.
David Lewis, Co-Chair of the Commission, gave an opening speech in which he said the issue of looted art is a moral and ethical one and that restitution is both the priority and "an obligation on the part of the governments whose museums and public institutions have found themselves as temporary custodians". "Cases have to be dealt with on moral and ethical grounds and this is best practice. It is, in our view, totally unacceptable that such matters as statutes of limitation and other legal restraints continue to impede restitution. Nor should the subjective importance of a particular object to a museum or other institution be taken into account when determining a just remedy.The sole criterion of a just remedy should be the evidence and the balance of probability that the loss of the object was due to the circumstances of the Nazi era. If that is the view of the Panel or decision-making body in whichever country the matter is being considered then the object should be restituted without further qualification." He spoke of the need for transparency, of the obligation of governments to provide funding for provenance research and to publish it within an agreed time frame. To read his speech in full, click here.
- "Amsterdam Museum to Return a Matisse Work Sold Under Duress in World War II"
New York Times, 27 June 2024 - "Stedelijk Museum Will Return Matisse Painting to Jewish Heirs of Albert Stern"
ARTnews, 27 June 2024 - "The painting Odalisque returns to Albert Stern’s legal successors"
Dutch Restitutions Committee Press Release, 25 June 2024 - "Restitution of Matisse 'Odalisque' to the heirs of Albert Stern"
Commission for Looted Art in Europe Press Release, 25 June 2024 - "Stedelijk Museum restitutes Matisse Odalisque to Jewish arts patrons’ heirs"
The Art Newspaper, 25 June 2024 - "Restitutions Committee Binding Advice: Odalisque by Matisse to return to Albert Stern’s legal successors"
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Press Release, 25 June 2024
A fair and just restitution agreement for a Kirchner painting from the Wallerstein Collection in the Brücke-Museum Berlin
- "Berlin’s Brücke Museum settles with the heirs of a Jewish collector on Kirchner painting"
The Art Newspaper, 4 June 2024
- "A Nazi-Looted Dutch Golden Age Painting Has Been Returned to Its 101-Year-Old Heiress: ‘We All Missed This Painting Very Much’"
Artnet News 14 June 2022, 14 June 2022 - " ‘I am amazed’: 101-year-old Dutch woman reunited with painting looted by Nazis"
The Guardian 13 June 2022, 13 June 2022
Restituted 80 years after its seizure in Paris, Nazi-looted, lost Avant-Garde Masterpiece ‘Europa’ receives World Premiere at 65th BFI London Film Festival
- "AGO returns painting to family following claim by the Commission for Looted Art in Europe"
Art Gallery of Ontario and Commission for Looted Art in Europe Joint Press Release, 18 November 2020
‘View of a Dutch square’ attributed to the Dutch 17th century painter Jan van der Heyden returned to the heirs of Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus
- "'View of a Dutch square' attributed to the Dutch 17th century painter Jan van der Heyden returned to the heirs of Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus"
Joint Press Release, 21 March 2019
Settlement of claim for Max Liebermann painting by the heirs of Dagobert and Martha David of Dusseldorf
- "Van Ham initiates restitution from the Waffenschmidt Collection "
Van Ham Auktionen Press Release, Cologne, 9 May 2018
- "The Master Hunter: Hunting for a lost Dutch masterpiece looted by the Nazis... and finding it 70 years later "
The Telegraph 8 June 2018 - "Painting looted by Nazis which hung for three decades in London is handed back to rightful owner"
Evening Standard, 6 November 2017
Bavaria to investigate return of art to high-ranking Nazi families – Dombauverein commits to restitution of Kraus family painting
- "Bavaria to investigate looted art rescued by 'Monuments Men' and sold back to Nazi families "
Daily Telegraph, 15 July 2016
Nazi-Looted Art returned by Germany to the high-ranking Nazis who looted it rather than returning it to rightful owners
- "Another Bombshell in Munich—Bavarian Government Sold Looted Art to Nazi Families "
Art Law Report 27 June 2016
Joint Press Release by the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz and Commission for Looted Art in Europe on ‘Pariser Platz in Berlin’ by Oskar Kokoschka
- "Great Expansion in Records Available on Nazi-Era Cultural Property Portal"
CLAE Press Release 9 May 2013
- "Sammlung Arthur Goldschmidt Klassik-Stiftung wird rechtmäßiger Besitzer von NS-Raubkunst"
MDR 8 February 2013
- "Court Forfeits Cristo Portacroce After Italy Does Not File A Claim"
Cultural Heritage Lawyer, 5 January 2012 - "US seizes Romanino painting stolen from Gentili family by Nazis in World War ll"
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 4 November 2011
- "National Archives and Partners Launch New International Nazi-Era Records Internet Portal"
Artdaily, 5 May 2011
- "Britain may rewrite its laws in order to return Nazi-looted art"
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 14 July 2005
- "Polish heir wants looted cross returned to his museum in Poland"
International Herald Tribune, 22 August 2007
- "Raubkunst-Jäger will Geld: Entdecker von Pissarro-Gemälde klagt auf Honorar"
Münchner Merkur, 7 February 2012 - "Irrwege eines Pissarro - Geschichte einer Restitution"
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31 October 2009
Lost 16th century 'Portrait of a lady with a dog' returns to the Gemäldegalerie Berlin after 60 years
- "After four decades of struggle, heirs of Czech collector win back some art"
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 28 March 2003