Nazi Loot Found at SMU

Recently, more evidence has come to light about the looting of art owned by Jewish families during World War II. The ownership code on two paintings, estimated to be worth more than $10 million, indicates that they originally belonged to the Rothschilds, an old Jewish family with German origins that established finance operations throughout Europe. The Monuments Men Foundation, an organization established to prevent art from being destroyed as a side effect of war, continues to work out the provenance of the pieces.

Provenance is a tricky issue in itself. As the author of an article on the Art Law Team Web site writes,

the heightened sensitivity surrounding the provenance, or ownership history, of valuable works of art is a relatively recent phenomenon. While provenance and the related but distinct issue of legitimate title have always been factors in the assembling of art collections it was only in 1998 that the Association of Museum Directors issued guidelines for museums to first determine the provenance of their works to the best of their ability, and then to disclose it.

Many collectors may assume that any works of art created after the Second World War are largely immune from provenance and title problems, but that would be a wrong assumption. The Art Loss Register, the most comprehensive international database of stolen, missing and looted artworks, adds around 14,500 art works each year. Of the more than 250,000 items in their database over 15 percent were created after 1945. In addition to maintaining records, the Register actively searches the exhibits at all major art fairs and scrutinizes the inventories of upcoming auctions. Insurance companies and art dealers routinely subscribe to the Register to check for items that have been stolen. Discoveries can be surprising: an $80,000 painting was recovered in 2007 at the Palm Beach Fine Arts fair that had been stolen in 1995 from the Buffalo Club in New York State .

 

Art Daily writes, 

These paintings (The Rothschild paintings) among tens of thousands looted by the Nazis, were later transported to Germany and Austria where they were discovered in the closing days of the war by the Monuments Men, a small group of men and women - museum directors, curators, artists, architects and librarians - who volunteered for service in an unprecedented effort to protect the great cultural treasures of western civilization from the destruction of the war and theft by the Nazis. This group, empowered by President Roosevelt and General Eisenhower, formally known as the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (MFAA), counted among its key members Lt. James J. Rorimer (future director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art), Private Lincoln Kirstein (future founder of the New York City Ballet), and Lt. George Stout (future director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), among others.

The rest of the Art Daily piece regarding the SMU discovery deals with the possible destinies of these paintings by the Spanish master Bartolome Esteban Murillo. Depending on the specifics of provenance, their voyage could take a completely different turn. If provenance is something that interests you, this is an excellent article tracking the steps that need to be taken when delving into the ownership history of a piece. Essentially, Lawrence Shindall, CEO of the ARIS Coorporation (an insurance company dealing with fine art), says it best: "Just because you bought it doesn't mean you own it.”