|
 Two of the pictures came from a trove of works held by Cornelius
Gurlitt, which was discovered in 2012 by German tax inspectors
in Munich. His father had been an art dealer and sold what the
Nazis dismissed as "degenerate" art.
At a ceremony in Berlin, culture minister Monika Gruetters said
the return of the pictures was a small but important step.
"We Germans know of our wrongdoing and know that we can never
put right the misery. But at least returning these kinds of art
works are small but important and necessary steps towards
justice in one small area," she said.
A great niece of the pictures' owner, Parisian lawyer and art
collector Armand Dorville, said she was very touched by their
return.
"If pictures could speak, if they could tell us their journey,
they would tall us an incredible amount about robbery, theft,
fraudulent sales and what we can learn from that," she said at
the ceremony, asking not to be identified.
She thanked the German government for its efforts to discover
the provenance of artwork and return them where possible,
especially 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz.
"You are fulfilling the obligation to keep alive the memory and
that this is taking place today on the 75th anniversary of the
liberation of Auschwitz is ... a symbol," she said.
The two pictures from the Gurlitt collection were a watercolor
entitled "Lady in an Evening Dress" and an oil painting
"Portrait of a Lady" by Jean-Louis Forain. The third work,
"Amazonian on Rearing Horse", was a drawing by Constantin Guys
which had been in private ownership.
[to top of second column] |
All three had belonged to Dorville, who sought refuge at his estate
in the Dordogne in unoccupied France in June 1940, where he died
about a year later. Other members of his family perished at the
Auschwitz death camp.
When anti-Semitic legislation was imposed in German-occupied France,
Dorville's heirs decided to sell the pictures at auction in Nice in
1942. It was not clear who bought them, but the family were not
allowed to use the proceeds, which instead went to the Vichy
government.
Gurlitt inherited the art works from his father and stored them in
his Munich apartment for decades. Switzerland's Kunst Museum Bern
learned in 2014, the day after Gurlitt's death, that it had been
named as the sole heir to 1,500 works, including paintings by Pablo
Picasso and Henri Matisse.
The German government said 13 art works had now been returned to
their lawful owners after being identified as looted art.
(Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Giles Elgood)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
