Boston museum says Web site art may be Nazi loot

April 11, 2000
Web posted at: 12:57 PM EDT (1657 GMT)

BOSTON (Reuters) -- Boston's Museum of Fine Arts has published on the Internet seven art works whose incomplete history of ownership suggests they might have been looted by the Nazis.

The museum's director, Malcom Rogers, said he hoped the project, launched just ahead of a Wednesday hearing in New York on how U.S. art museums and dealers are handling Nazi plunder, would help restore art works to their rightful owners.

"Filling the gaps in the provenance of these paintings could assist in the identification and restitution of works that may have been looted during the Holocaust and World War II," Rogers said in a statement.

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View the paintings at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts
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ART MUSEUM SITES:   international   u.s. cities: a-h   u.s. cities: i-q   u.s. cities: r-z

Rogers is scheduled to testify at the New York hearing by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, along with directors from New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art.

The Boston museum's seven paintings include a 17th-century oil painting by Domenico Fetti that was handled by a notorious Nazi art dealer and a 17th century oil painting by Eglon van der Neer -- little is known about how that work got to the United States.

The Boston museum is believed to be the first U.S. museum to display a specific list of possible Nazi plunder. Washington's National Gallery of Art has for a few years published the provenance of its works on its Web site, including concerns about whether an item is Nazi booty.

In February, British museums published some 300 works on the Internet that might have been looted from Holocaust victims. On Monday, Germany listed thousands of works of art that were stolen by the Nazis from museums and victims during World War II.

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