🌅 This Home Comes with Nazi-Looted Art

SOURCE

ARTnews

WHAT TO KNOW

• Authorities in Argentina announced the recovery of an 18th-century painting looted by Nazis more than 80 years ago from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam. Dutch journalists spotted the painting in the photos of an online real estate listing for a property owned by the daughter of a former Nazi official.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Before reappearing online, Portrait of a Lady by Italian artist Giuseppe Ghislandi was last seen in 1945 and had long appeared on international and Dutch lists of artworks looted by Nazis. The painting belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Jewish art dealer who fled the Netherlands in May 1940 as the Wehrmacht invaded. Within weeks of Goudstikker’s unexpected death while fleeing, prominent Nazi official Hermann Göring looted the dealer’s entire 1,100-piece collection.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Estimates suggest the Nazis stole as much as one-fifth of all moveable artworks in Europe during the Third Reich, most of which has been found and returned, though many pieces remain lost today. Countries handle the recovery of art and cultural artifacts looted by Nazis based on the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, which provide a non-binding framework to address how countries can return the stolen objects to their rightful owners.