“Hobby Lobby’s $3 million smuggling case casts a cloud over the Museum of the Bible”
B
Read more here.
Smuggling ancient artifacts
4 Replies
Category Archives: Stolen art
Possible Nazi war loot at the Neue Gallerie, NYC
Ronald Lauder, Advocate of Art Restitution, Says His Museum Holds a Clouded Work
Dutch museum in search of owners of art
The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, a museum of modern and contemporary art, is hosting an extraordinary exhibit of works from its own collection. However, the question is, does the museum really own the works? During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands (from May 1940), the director of the Stedelijk accepted works of art for safe-keeping from Jewish owners. This exhibit, “The Stedelijk Museum on the Second World War,”
Matisse, “Odalisque,” ca. 1920, currently at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
includes facsimiles of provenance records from that period with the hope that original owners may be identified. This article by Mary M. Lane from the online Wall Street Journal (2/27/15) includes photographs of the bunker in the dunes of Castricum, a Dutch seaside town, where many artworks were stored during WWII.
The normally camouflaged door that accessed the bunker that Stedelijk Museum curator Willem Sandberg commissioned for Holland after he visited Spain in 1938 and saw the cultural destruction evident during the Spanish Civil War. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
This link to the museum’s site has several short videos.
More on Syria’s archaeological ruins
Above: A walnut tree stripped of its branches stands in the rubble of the Kalat al-Numan citadel, originally built during the Roman era some 2,000 years ago. (John Cantlie/AFP/Getty Images)
“Syria’s ancient sites were already damaged by war. Now they’re being looted.” The Washington Post, 12/21/14.
And a link from the above article to satellite images of Syria’s World Heritage sites:
“War has damaged all but one of Syria’s World Heritage Sites, satellite images show.” The Washington Post, 9/24/14.
And a link to UNESCO’s World Heritage Site list.
Art and war
Here’s something to think about. What happens to art in a time of war?
Restored Baghdad Museum Reopens, by Maev Kennedy, 2/23/09
The Future of History, by Ben Preston, 2/25/09
See also the work of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield.
Hitler’s “Degenerate Art”
If you’re in NYC this spring, get to the Neue Galerie to see “Degenerate Art: The Attack on Modern Art in Nazi Germany, 1937” (through June 30).
Here’s a review by Holland Cotter from the New York Times.
Nazi war loot found in Munich
Here are just a few of the many articles detailing the recent disclosure of a treasure trove of art found in an apartment in Munich.
Another from the NYT, 11/5/13
Mail Online (London), 11/5/13
Holocaust art claim in Hungary
The heirs of Hungarian banker Baron Mor Lipot Herzog are suing Hungary for the return of art taken by the Nazis. Baron Herzog was one of the most important collectors of art in Europe in the early 20th century. Read more in the NYT article, July 28, 2010.
Hitler’s museum in Linz — Volume XIII
Volume XIII describing the collections for Hitler’s planned, but never built Führermuseum in Linz, Austria was recently returned to the German Historical Museum in Berlin. See this NY Times article.
“Metropolitan’s Euphronios Vase” in Rome
Euphronios Vase, 6th c. BCE (Villa Giulia, Rome)
Once a prized object in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), the Euphronios Vase has returned to Italy. Read more in the NY Times (July 8, 2009).
