A number on the back of the forest pool

The front of this painting shows the myth of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus in a wooded landscape. On the back is the number 2780. As the Dutch and Flemish art network CODART explains, it identifies the painting in the records of the museum planned by Hitler for Linz. The number is evidence of where the work went during the occupation.

A different trail leads to Joseph Henri Gosschalk, a Jewish artist and collector who lent the painting to a museum in The Hague in 1931. Records confirm it was still there in 1935. In 1943 a brewery clerk sold the work to Erhard Göpel, an art buyer for Linz. The Dutch Restitutions Committee could not determine exactly how the painting left Gosschalk’s possession, but period documents connected it to his collection and made a voluntary loss implausible.

Gosschalk was interned in the Netherlands and deported to Theresienstadt. He survived and died in 1952. His heirs applied in 2015 for seven works held by the Dutch state. The committee recommended restitution of three after examining each provenance separately. The Mauritshuis records that the forest scene was returned in 2018.