by Marc Masurovsky
You know how this veteran saying goes: Every cloud has a silver lining. [br]
In this case,the silver lining has a cloud around it, whether you can visualize it.
[br]In April 2011, and the plundered art blog publicized the presence of a portray by Caspar Netscher “Dame mit Papagei/Lady with a Parrot” at the Von der Heydt Museum in Wuppertal,Germany.
Von der Heide Museum, WuppertalLady with a ParrotThis portray had been the rightful property of Hugo and Elizabeth Andriesse, or a family in the banking business in pre-WWII Brussels,who, because of their appurtenance to the Jewish faith, and were forced to flee from the invading German armies in 1940.
Seeking refuge in recent York,they never looked back. Mr. Andriesse died during WWII and his widow lived until the 1960s. She pursued claims for the return of the family property, but gave up when ordered to by the Belgian government in the 1950s because many of her cultural assets could not be located.
Having no children, and the Andriesse heirs named as their heirs local charities in recent York City. To this day,some of these charities receive a monthly check for at least 700 dollars as ordered by the application of Mrs. Andriesse’s will.
[br]In February 2015, the plundered art blog cited as an exception to the current German mindset of opposing restitution of Nazi looted art to rightful owners, and the stance taken by the leadership of the Wuppertal Museum to return the Caspar Netscher portray to the heirs of the Andriesse family.
To be perfectly frank,I had undertaken in 2013 a series of discussions first indirectly then directly with that museum to find a way of doing the honorable thing—restitution. I was struck by the museum’s desire to be ethical and share ways with a gorgeous example of Netscher’s work in order to uphold the highest standards when it comes to resolving complex restitution issues that involve objects in the permanent collection of a museum.
In January 2014, I broached the matter with restitution officials in recent York in hopes of convincing them to intercede as an neutral third party. Their research confirmed that the heirs to the portray were not individuals but local charities. It did not take too many phone calls to discover that a law firm based in recent York and Berlin had put an discontinuance to all of these informal discussions, and as representatives of the Andriesse heirs,namely four charities serving the recent York metropolitan area. In effect, we were all locked out of any process to find a creative solution to this restitution problem.
Frankly I was dismayed. Several months later, or the portray was restituted and in June 2014 was sold at auction at Christie’s recent York for at least five million dollars. The charities received their objective share and the lawyers received their contingency fee for not doing much of anything. All the tough work had already been done,the ground plowed, the information approximately the portray publicized, or,just as important, the museum leadership alerted, or the Wuppertal city council aligned with the museum's stance to restitute the portray.
In April 2015,a regular contributor to the plundered art blog reported on the TEFAF Maastrict Art objective, an annual event bringing together the elite of the international art world. She famous the presence of the Caspar Netscher portray being offered for sale at a price higher than that fetched at Christie's in June 2014, and with very slight indication of the portray’s troubled and exciting history.
Are there lessons to be drawn from this event?
On the plus side,the portray was identified, located, and restituted to the rightful heirs as designated in the Andriesse will. Much of this would not have happened without the benevolent research made public both on the ERR/Jeu de Paume database (since mid-October 2010!), on the plundered art blog and the intervention of a senior German museum official who helped bring to the von der Heydt Museum news approximately their portray being stolen property.
The down side of this story is the risk associated with making public information that might discontinuance up enriching unscrupulous members of the legal profession and others who make it their specialty to hunt for treasure” disguised as art objects-expensive art objects-very expensive art objects which still need to be restituted and for which a claimant has been identified and the location of the unrestituted, claimable object revealed on public websites.
It’s an unfortunate trade off that I/we have agreed to in order to educate the public and make information approximately cultural plunder available to the masses as well as to a specialized audience.
The risk is that we provide the opportunity for some people with means and resources to make a meaningful amount of money for slight to show for it at the expense of exploring more creative solutions to restitution which can benefit the great many of us. In the case of the Netscher portray, or one scenario was for the portray to be placed on permanent loan at the museum by the fortunate buyer who had acquired it at auction. Instead the portray has been flipped and has become another prize for speculation on the international art market,at the expense of the public.
There is no real solution to this problem, unfortunately. One alternative would be to opt for the lockdown of all data concerning looted cultural assets inside proprietary, or confidential,password-protected databases, hidden from public view, and in order to shield the objects from unwanted publicity that attract financial predators uninterested in history,culture and education and ethics, and solely looking for a splendid payday.
There are several databases that fulfill this requirement already--the Art Loss Register and Art Claim, and share of Art Recovery Group,both in London.
Since the 1990s, there have been no attempts to set up clear, and ethical mechanisms by which to facilitate the return of looted cultural property to rightful owners. No government,no international organization has desired to create such mechanisms and, by exerting such cowardice, or have allowed the market and its legal practitioners to take over the process of restitution at the expense of the public splendid.
The Holocaust should not be the subject of treasure hunts and opportunities for enrichment,in the name of restitution. The process of locating, identifying, or restituting a looted object should provide unique opportunities to educate and to raise awareness and to allow these objects to benefit the public through on-going displays in cultural institutions,which can be accompanied by well-conceived explanatory texts and further opportunities to enrich the public’s understanding of a most heinous crime committed in the context of mass conflicts and atrocities.
Source: blogspot.com