Brussels, Feb. 13 (BUS): Belgium’s leading art museum has returned a painting it had kept for 71 years of the great-grandchildren of a Jewish couple whose property was looted by the Nazis after they fled on the eve of World War II.
The family-owned Berlin-based law firm contacted the Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts (Royal Museums of Fine Arts) more than five years ago, and on Thursday, after a signing-briefing ceremony, workers unloaded the painting and wheeled it to be packed.
“All in all, the family is looking for 30 works of art,” said attorney Emki Gillin. “This is the first that has really been identified because unfortunately we don’t have photos of the missing paintings.”
None of the nine great-grandchildren who live outside Belgium attended on Thursday.
The painting of pink flowers in a blue vase by German artist Lovis Corinth, belongs to Gustav and Emma Mayer, who fled their home in Frankfurt in 1938 to Brussels until their passage to Britain in August 1939.
However, they were unable to take their belongings, including 30 paintings, which were looted by the Nazis. Among the paintings captured were Corinth’s 1913 expressive “Flowers,” which the Nazis described as “degenerate.”
After the war, Belgian authorities failed to determine who it belonged to and entrusted the museum in 1951, where it has been suspended ever since.
Museum president Michael Dragette said it was easier to find the original owners of the artworks in the case of Jewish families living in Belgium, because of the archives and contacts.
“Here, it was impossible even to tell whether this work was coming from Germany or another country,” Dragette said.
The museum, which in 2008 appealed to the public on its website for information on the painting, also inaugurated two rooms containing and processing artworks and works looted by Belgium during the colonial era.
HF