Goudstikker: the claim that brought back 202 works

At the beginning of the occupation, the stock of Amsterdam art dealer Jacques Goudstikker included paintings later dispersed through transactions involving Hermann Göring. Many recovered works entered Dutch state custody after the war.

A renewed claim eventually covered 267 objects in the national collection. The Restitutions Committee investigated original ownership, involuntary loss and earlier postwar proceedings rather than treating recovery by a state as equivalent to restitution.

Its December 2005 recommendation favoured return of 202 works. On 6 February 2006 the government approved that result, although it differed on parts of the legal reasoning. The image here shows one work in the case, Daniël Vosmaer’s View of Delft.