THE ARCHIVE BY COUNTRY
Published reports from our archive, newest first.
A country may refer to the theft, recovery, return or legal proceedings. A case can be linked to more than one country.
89 reports · Page 4 / 5
Five paintings stolen from Gotha in 1979 return to Friedenstein — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
Five Old Master paintings taken from Schloss Friedenstein were returned after forty years. The announcement distinguishes works by or associated with Hals, Brueghel, Lievens, Holbein and Van Dyck, ahead of conservation.
Stolen fifteenth-century Divan of Hafez manuscript recovered — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
Arthur Brand reported recovering a fifteenth-century manuscript missing from the Ghazy collection. The report concerns a particular historic copy of Hafez’s poetry, not the recovery of all items missing from the collection.
Police composite of jewels involved in the Green Vault theft; image retained from the existing recovery report. Image source ↗
Dresden police and prosecutors appealed for witnesses after the 25 November 2019 theft from the Green Vault. Their 11 December release focused on an Audi A6 believed to have been used by the perpetrators, requesting photographs and information from before the robbery. This card documents the investigation while the jewels were still missing, before the separately reported partial recovery in 2022.
Joseph Wopfner, Fishing Boats near Frauenchiemsee, no. 12589. Bavarian State Painting Collections / Wikimedia Commons. Image source ↗
The Bavarian State Painting Collections record the formal restitution of Joseph Wopfner’s painting to Alfred Isay’s heirs in December 2019. A planned handover ceremony was later cancelled.
Paul Signac, Quai de Clichy. Temps gris, 1887 — public-domain reproduction via Wikimedia Commons. Image source ↗
An official announcement confirms the handover of Paul Signac’s Quai de Clichy. Temps gris (Opus 156) on 3 July 2019 to a representative of Gaston Prosper Lévy’s family. Provenance research into the Gurlitt collection identified it as Nazi-looted property. This was the sixth restitution from that collection. This painting is distinct from Port de la Rochelle.
Concordia reported settlements over paintings by Otto Heichert and Martinus Schouman. The buyers retained both works, and Max Stern’s heirs received full compensation.
Laboratory analysis of Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window showed that the Cupid in the background had been painted over after the artist’s death. Dresden conservators began removing the later paint to reveal the figure.
A Düsseldorf auction house returned Storm at Sea, an 1841 painting by Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek, to the heirs of Jewish art dealer Max Stern. A tip from the European art trade alerted the Max Stern Art Restitution Project to the work. Image: Concordia University.
Guggenheim agrees to restitute Kirchner’s Artillerymen — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
The Guggenheim agreed to return Artillerymen to Alfred Flechtheim’s heirs after provenance research established its persecution-related history. The announcement records a restitution agreement, rather than a newly reported theft.
Context photograph · Bomann Museum, the institution that returned the forest landscape · Hombre / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · resized / redimensionnée Image source ↗
A forest landscape formerly attributed to Simon de Vlieger was seized from a loan in Leiden and purchased at auction in 1943. The Bomann Museum returned it to the Jaffé heirs in 2018.
A Wiesbaden court handed prison sentences to Itzhak Zarug and Moez Ben Hazaz in a case involving forged paintings and invented provenance for works attributed to Russian avant-garde artists including Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky. The image shows a detail from a work attributed to Alexandra Exter that was disputed at trial.
The Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen said technical examination dated the materials of Black Rectangle, Red Square to 1950 or later. Kazimir Malevich died in 1935. The painting had been donated to the museum in 2014. Image shows the disputed painting, photographed by Achim Kukulies.
Georg Baselitz pictured with an artwork; contextual photograph, not an identification of the stolen paintings. Image source ↗
Bavarian investigators recovered fifteen paintings and drawings stolen from a logistics company near Munich. Four further works remained missing at the time of the report; the artist asked that individual works not be identified.
Verzijl’s Young Man as Bacchus returned to Max Stern’s heirs — artwork or case documentation from the linked image source. Image source ↗
The FBI returned the painting after identifying it at a New York art fair. It had been sold during Galerie Stern’s forced liquidation under Nazi persecution; the holding gallery waived its ownership claim.
Case diagram by ArtTraceX · Max Rüdenberg collection · Schmidt-Rottluff · watercolour. Image source ↗
Sprengel Museum records linked Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s watercolour to Max Rüdenberg. The German commission concluded that it had been sold under duress in 1939 and recommended its return.
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation returned Reinhold Begas’s marble Susanna to the heirs of Felicia Lachmann-Mosse. Research traced the sculpture to the Mosse collection and determined it had been lost as a result of Nazi persecution. It initially remained on loan to Berlin’s Alte Nationalgalerie. Image: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie / Andres Kilger.
Context photograph · Kunsthalle Bremen, where the Isaak Major drawing was returned and repurchased · Conny / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0 · resized / redimensionnée Image source ↗
Provenance research identified an Isaak Major drawing from the Arthur Feldmann collection. The Kunsthalle Bremen returned and repurchased the work in 2016.
The German Foreign Office announced a 31 March handover of Francesco Guardi’s painting, removed from Warsaw’s National Museum during the Second World War. Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Image: National Gallery of Art, Washington. Public domain. Image source ↗
The Nazis confiscated the painting from Hugo and Elisabeth Andriesse’s collection. It entered the Von der Heydt Museum in 1952 and was returned to their heirs in 2014.
A Cologne court ordered Lempertz to pay compensation over its sale of Red Picture with Horses, catalogued as a work by Heinrich Campendonk. The canvas was a forgery made by Wolfgang Beltracchi. Photo: the forged painting, Simon Vogel / picture alliance / dpa, via The Guardian.
Context photograph · Museum Wiesbaden, which returned the two Gennaro Greco paintings · Martin Kraft / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · resized / redimensionnée Image source ↗
The Wiesbaden Museum returned two architectural paintings by Gennaro Greco to Martin Tietz’s heirs. The heirs subsequently sold the paintings back to the museum.
