Displaying items by tag: looted

Federal officials have returned three stolen antiquities estimated to be worth around $1.5 million to the Indian Consulate in New York. The United States Department of Homeland Security Investigations has been working with India to recover dozens of stolen artifacts in recent years.

All three of the works date from the 11th or 12th century and include a sandstone sculpture that had been stolen from an Indian temple in 2009. The 350-pound work, which depicts the deities Vishnu and Lakshmi, had been listed as one of the Interpol’s top 10 stolen artworks. The other recovered artifacts include a 400-pound figurative sculpture and a black sandstone sculpture depicting the male deity Bodhisattva.

A ceremony was held on Tuesday, January 14 at the Consulate.

An art historian is claiming that two artworks residing inside Germany’s parliament were stolen from their rightful owners by Nazis during World War II. The shocking discovery ran in an article in Bild newspaper on Monday, December 30.

The historian’s investigation into the German parliament’s art collection began in 2012 and determined that an oil painting by Georg Waltenberger and a chalk lithograph by Lovis Corinth had been stolen by Nazis. One of the works was acquired by the parliament from Cornelius Gurlitt, a recluse who was recently accused of hoarding hundreds of masterpieces stolen by Nazis. Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrandt, had been put in charge of selling the stolen artworks by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, but secretly hoarded many of them. 

The parliament’s art collection is comprised of nearly 4,000 works and according to investigations, 108 of those pieces are of unknown provenance. The Central Council of Jews in Germany has called for a list of the parliament’s artworks to be published.

A long-lost impressionist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro will be sold at Sotheby’s London on February 5, 2014. ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinée de Printemps’ (1897) is expected to sell for £7 million to £10 million during the auction house’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale.

The painting belonged to the wealthy industrialist Max Silberberg, who amassed a considerable collection of 19th and 20th century artwork by masters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Vincent Van Gogh. Between 1935 and 1937, Nazis forced Silberberg to sell his entire art collection before deporting him and his wife to Auschwitz, where they both perished. Silberberg’s son, Alfred, and his wife, Gerta, survived the Holocaust and fled to England. Following Alfred’s death in 1984, Gerta worked tirelessly to locate her late father-in-law’s collection. ‘Boulevard Montmartre’ was restituted to her in 2000 after having spent many years in the Israel Museum’s collection in Jerusalem. Gerta later loaned the painting back to the museum where it remained on public view until her death earlier this year.

Profits from the sale of the Pissarro painting will support the charitable causes championed by the late Gerta Silberberg.

An ancient statue sold at auction will be returned to Cambodia after an agreement was signed by Sotheby’s, the work's consignor and federal officials. The figure, which is believed to have been looted from a temple in the Cambodian jungle, has been at the center of a legal battle for nearly two years.

The 10th century sandstone statue depicting a Hindu warrior is estimated to be worth $2 million and was consigned by its long-time owner in 2011. Following the agreement to return the treasure, lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office withdrew allegations that Sotheby’s and the consignor knew of the work’s troubled provenance before importing it for sale. The consignor will receive no compensation for the statue from Cambodia.

A spokesman for Sotheby’s said the auction house was pleased that “the agreement confirms that Sotheby’s and its client acted properly at all times.”

German authorities announced that they would return a number of paintings to Cornelius Gurlitt, a recluse accused of hoarding hundreds of masterpieces stolen by the Nazis. Reinhard Nemetz, The chief prosecutor who is handling Gurlitt’s case, acknowledged that several of the works confiscated from Gurlitt's home clearly belonged to him. A task force was appointed to identify such paintings as soon as possible. Authorities stated that out of the 1,406 paintings, sketches and prints found in Gurlitt’s home, about 970 were suspected of being looted from Jewish families or taken from museums during World War II.

Gurlitt is the son of the art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt, who reportedly aquired the art trove in the late 1930s and 1940s. Hildebrandt Gurlitt had been put in charge of selling the stolen artworks abroad by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, but secretly hoarded many of them and later claimed that they were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden. Cornelius Gurlitt, who is unemployed, sold a number of the paintings over the years and lived off of the profits.

Determining the provenance of works by such luminaries as Pablo Picasso and Pierre-Auguste Renoir is expected to be a lengthy process, especially since Gurlitt is determined not to give up the artworks without a fight. He told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, “I will not give anything back voluntarily.”

Two organizations affiliated with the Secession building in Vienna where Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece, Beethoven Frieze, is housed, have spoken out against the heirs of the work’s former owner. The heirs of Erich Lederer, who fled Vienna when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, filed a request with Austria’s Art Restitution Advisory Board under a law that regulates the return of Nazi-looted artwork. The claim was made possible after Austria expanded the law in 2009 to cover instances where previous owners were forced to sell their artworks for unreasonably low values following World War II.

In response to the heirs’ claims, the Association of Visual Artists Vienna Secession and Friends of the Secession filed a statement saying that after studying the historical record and their consciences they had determined that the “claimants are in the wrong” adding that restitution would “trivial real injustice and debase any other genuine claims.”

Lederer’s Klimt painting was seized by the Nazis and later returned following World War II. Austrian officials would only allow Lederer to export other restituted artworks if he sold Beethoven Frieze for $75,000; half of what Christie’s estimated the painting to be worth at the time. 

The German government has released some details about the astounding art collection found in a dilapidated Munich apartment. Authorities released a written statement saying that about 590 of the 1,400 artworks could have been stolen by Nazis and identified 25 of the pieces on the website www.lostart.de. Among the paintings listed on the site were Otto Dix’s The Woman in the Theater Box, Otto Griebel’s Child at the Table and Max Liebermann’s Rider on the Beach. The trove also includes works by Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso.

The masterpieces were found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of the art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt, who reportedly acquired the works in the late 1930s and 1940s. Gurlitt’s father had been put in charge of selling the stolen artworks abroad by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, but secretly hoarded many of them and later claimed that they were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden. Gurlitt, an unemployed recluse, sold a number of the paintings over the years and lived off of the profits. 200 of the pieces have outstanding return requests from the original owners’ heirs.

The German government has assembled a task force of six experts to research the provenance of each recently discovered artwork. To date, it has been determined that one painting by Matisse was stolen by the Nazis from a French bank in 1942.  

German officials will update the Lost Art website regularly as the investigation progresses.

Around 1,500 artworks worth approximately one billion euros ($1.35 billion) were found in a dilapidated apartment in Munich. The shocking discovery was made public on Sunday, November 3 by the German news magazine, Focus. The trove includes works by celebrated impressionist and modern masters such as Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso as well as Old Masters including Albrecht Durer.

The masterpieces, which were allegedly confiscated by Nazis or sold under duress by their Jewish owners, were found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of the art dealer Hildebrandt Gurlitt, who reportedly acquired the works in the late 1930s and 1940s. Gurlitt’s father had been put in charge of selling the stolen artworks abroad by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, but secretly hoarded many of them and later claimed that they were destroyed in the bombing of Dresden. Gurlitt, an unemployed recluse, sold a number of the paintings over the years and lived off of the profits. 200 of the pieces have outstanding return requests from the original owners’ heirs.

In a shocking twist, it was revealed that officials have known about the looted artworks since 2011, when investigators searched Gurlitt’s apartment after he was caught by customs authorities on a train from Switzerland to Munich with a large amount of cash. Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the Art Loss Register, told AFP, “I think it’s the biggest find of Holocaust pictures that there’s been for years, but it’s still a tiny fraction of the total number of pictures that we’re looking for.” The works are currently being held in a customs warehouse outside of Munich.    

The heirs of Erich Lederer, who fled Vienna when the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, are demanding the return of Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece Beethoven Frieze (1902). The work was created in honor of the composer’s Ninth Symphony and remains one of Vienna’s Secession building’s biggest attractions.

Lederer’s heirs filed a request with the Ministry for Education, the Art and Culture under a law that regulates the return of Nazi-looted artwork. Their claim was made possible after Austria expanded the law in 2009 to cover instances where previous owners were forced to sell their artworks for unreasonably low values following World War II.

Lederer’s Klimt painting was seized by the Nazis and later returned following World War II. However, Austrian officials would only allow Lederer to export other restituted artworks if he sold Beethoven Frieze for $75,000, half of what Christie’s estimated the painting to be worth.

The Ministry says that it has yet to receive Lederer’s heirs’ filing but that the claim will be examined once it arrives according to the revised restitution law.

Thieves have made off with valuables including priceless 18^th century oil paintings from a colonial-era Roman Catholic church in Bolivia. Located in the small town of San Miguel de Tomave, the church has been looted three times in the last five years.

Churches in remote areas of Bolivia and Peru have recently fallen victim to repeated robberies. Thieves have gone so far as to create tunnels under church walls to make their way inside the structure undetected. Since 2009, Bolivian churches have allegedly been robbed 38 times of 447 objects including jewelry and silver.

Authorities claim that the thieves are stealing from the churches for collectors in Europe and the United States, where there’s a considerable market for Latin American art. Modest churches in sparsely populated areas are easy targets for the looters.