U.S. museums work to trace art plundered by Nazis

The painting "Virgin and Child" by Zanobi di Jacopo di Piero Machiavelli may have been plundered from its rightful owners by Nazis during World War II

April 13, 2000
Web posted at: 2:24 a.m. EDT (0624 GMT)

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NEW YORK (CNN) -- "The Madonna and Child in a Landscape," a 16th century painting by the German artist Lucas Cranach the elder, hung on a wall at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh for more than 15 years.

This year, it came down to be returned to the owner's heirs after documents revealed the painting had once been looted by the Nazis.

VIDEO CNN's Frank Buckley looks at what is being done to return art stolen by the Nazis. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K     GALLERY View the paintings at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts     RESOURCES ART MUSEUM SITES:   international   u.s. cities: a-h   u.s. cities: i-q   u.s. cities: r-z

"It was proven to us that the painting was stolen," said Lawrence Wheeler, museum director. "Morally, as well as legally, the painting never belonged to us."

The history of the North Carolina painting was heard Wednesday in New York by the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets, which is seeking to determine how much Nazi-looted art is held by U.S. museums.

During World War II, Adolf Hitler's troops systematically plundered the art collections of Europe, especially Jewish collections, stealing an estimated 600,000 paintings, sculptures and other objects.

Allied troops recovered about two-thirds of the looted objects after the war, returning them to their countries of origin, which were expected to distribute the works to their rightful owners. But many victims of the Nazi plunder never got their art back.

U.S. museum directors testified Wednesday before the presidential commission. Glenn Lowry, director of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, said, "Will there be some (in U.S. collections)? Of course. There already have been. Will it turn out to be the vast number that others have suggested? I don't believe so."

Still, after 18 months of investigation, major museums identified hundreds of paintings with incomplete ownership information during the Nazi era.

Fifteen paintings at The Museum of Modern Art, including works by Klee and Picasso, are under review. The museum directors say the paintings they've identified are not suspect pictures, but rather red flags -- paintings with gaps in their histories during and after the Nazi era.

"We have no reason to believe that any of these pictures were looted by the Nazis before or during the Second World War," Lowry said in a statement, "but we have included them because we do not yet know where they were during all or part of the Nazi period."

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts this week disclosed it had seven questionable paintings in its collection. Two of them, Dutch paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries, have been on display since they were acquired more than 50 years ago. The museum said a third painting, a Flemish landscape from around 1500, is now the subject of a looted-art claim.

Philippe De Montebello, director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, said the Met reviewed all 2,700 of its European paintings and found that 393 -- including works by Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Cezanne and Monet -- had incomplete ownership histories.

"We have not received any claim from a victim of Nazi spoilation, nor been asked to look for a missing work by a victim or an heir," De Montebello told the panel.

The museum directors say the vast majority of the pieces are not suspicious, but full disclosure is being made -- including posting the works on museum Web sites -- in an effort to determine exact histories.

To date, only three U.S. museum paintings have been identified as Nazi-looted: The North Carolina painting; a Matisse at the Seattle Museum of Art and a Degas at the Art Institute of Chicago.

"Why haven't the others been identified and returned?" said Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress. "I think today is an important step in the right direction. But the three paintings actually are an indictment more than anything else."

With their disclosures Wednesday, U.S. museums are following the steps of museums in Europe. In 1997, the Louvre identified more than 1,000 displayed works whose post-war ownership histories were unknown, some of which were repatriated.

Last month, a consortium of 10 British museums, including the National Gallery and the Tate, published a list of 350 questionable artworks; no looted-art claim has resulted.

"This is the initial material from which we can work to determine which of these objects have been looted and should be returned," Steinberg said. "The museums should be congratulated for having done so," he said, adding, "We're going to have to be judged on our behavior from here on out."

Correspondent Frank Buckley,
Producer Phil Hirschkorn and Reuters contributed to this report.

Chicago museum using Web to trace lineage of Nazi-era art
April 12, 2000
Boston museum says Web site art may be Nazi loot
April 11, 2000
British take steps to return art plundered by Nazis
March 4, 2000

Presidential Commission on Holocaust Assets in the US
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The World Jewish Congress

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