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Tuesday, 21 October 2014 11:09

Ashmolean Museum to Return Nazi-Looted Object to Owner's Heirs

The Renaissance salt cellar. The Renaissance salt cellar. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

A Renaissance silver-gilt and enamel salt cellar, bequeathed by collector Michael Wellby to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, has been identified as Nazi loot. It will thus be returned to the descendants of its pre-WWII owner.

The intricate piece is one of the 500 silverware items—believed to be worth in excess of £10 million—donated to the museum in 2012 by Wellby, a former friend of Professor Timothy Wilson, the museum's Keeper of Western Art.

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