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Holland releases artwork stolen by the Nazis

Updated: 12/Feb/2006 17:51

Salomon VAN RUYSDAEL, The Netherlands c1600-1670 The halt at the inn, 1644, Haarlem oil on canvas, 112.7 x 90.8 cm

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The Netherlands are set to return a collection of valuable paintings to the family of a Jewish art collector who died during the Holocaust.

The collection, which includes works by Dutch masters Van Ruysdael, Van Goyen and Van Dyck, belonged to Jacques Goudstikker who fled the Netherlands just before the German invasion in May 1940 leaving behind over 1,200 masterpieces which formed a remarkable collection.

The paintings are said to be worth millions of euros. They were seized by the Nazis during their occupation of the Netherlands during the war.

Decades-long battle

Goudstikker, who was refused entry into England, died on route to South America. His collection was sold to an Amsterdam based German art dealer and then to Hermann Goering, the Nazi Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe.

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After the war Goudstikker’s wife, Desi, returned to the Netherlands and learnt that the Dutch government had recovered many of the collection but had allocated them, as they had done with thousands of recovered works, to museums.

Goudstikker then enacted legal proceedings to secure the release of her husband’s art collection.

After many years of wrangling, Goudstikker got back some of the paintings but not the masterpieces. Desi Goudstikker died in 1996 and it was left to her daughter-in-law Marei von Saher to continue the fight.

Questions have been asked about the role of the Dutch authorities who had auctioned off works they didn’t consider to be national treasures.

After an appeal to the Dutch government in 1998, the Dutch authorities have agreed to return 202 works of art and masterpieces to the Goudstikker family. The collection will be released to von Saher.

Loss for museums

It is a big loss for the museums

Medy van der Laan, The Secretary of State for Culture

A further 40 works will remain in the Netherlands, as their ownership is in doubt, and another 21 were deemed to have been surrendered under an agreement the Goudstikkers made with the government in 1952.

Some of the Goudstikker collection is displayed at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum. A Dutch minister said no compensation would be paid to the museums currently housing them.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Medy van der Laan, said, “It is a big loss for the museums.”

Now several investigations regarding stolen art works have been under way in the Netherlands shedding new light on the controversial role Dutch authorities played after the war and why they retained recovered artworks for so long.

Dutch authorities have finally promised to surrender some 3,750 artworks recovered after the war to their legitimate owners.