Dear Subscribers,
Following up on the March 25th theft from the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Netherlands here is some additional information. The five missing 17th century Dutch paintings are:
Jan Steen, "The Quack" (De kwakzalver)
Cornelis Bega, "The Musicians" (De muzikanten)
Cornelis Dusart, "Drinking Bout" (Drinkgelag)
Adriaan van Ostade, "The Happy Drinker" (De marskramer)
Jewish Museum to file a suit against the ministry of culture
Tue Mar 26,12:36 PM ET By NADIA RYBAROVA, Associated Press Writer
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The Jewish Museum here plans to file a suit against the government in an attempt to reverse a decision that has blocked the restitution of an art collection stolen during the Nazi occupation, an official said Tuesday.
In January, the Czech ministry of culture declared 14 paintings a cultural treasure, significantly limiting their owner's rights over them.
The paintings form part of a collection of 30 paintings and drawings that belonged to Emil Freund, a Jewish lawyer who was forced to leave Prague in 1941 for the Jewish ghetto in Lodz, Poland, where he died the next year.
Museum officials fear that the decision could prevent the restitution of the paintings to Freund's great-great nephew, Gerald McDonald, a U.S. citizen.
McDonald is now claiming the collection, which includes Paul Signac's "Riverboat on Seine" (1901), and Andre Derain's "Head of a Young Woman" (c. 1920).
The Signac alone is valued at some dlrs 1 million.
Michaela Hajkova, a curator at the Jewish Museum, which is in current possession of the collection, said the museum opposes the ministry's decision and supports McDonald's efforts. "We want the ministry's decision reversed," she said.
When Freund was transported to Poland in 1941, he left behind his art collection, which was seized by the Nazis. After the 1948 communist takeover, the collection came into the possession of the Czechoslovak state.
Freund's sisters, Berta Sieben and Olga Hoppen, who had emigrated to the United States in the 1920s, made an unsuccessful attempt in 1949 to claim the collection. Until recently, the family had given up on retrieving the paintings.
McDonald decided to try to retrieve the pieces after a law was passed in 2000 that allows for art stolen by the Nazis to be claimed by the original owners or their heirs.
McDonald fears the ministry's recent decision will hamper his efforts.
But Ministry of Culture spokeswoman, Dita Fuchsova, denied that the decision would prevent McDonald from having any rights to the paintings.
"Even a cultural treasure can be taken out of the country — under certain conditions and for an agreed period of time," Fuchsova said. She admitted, however, that McDonald would not be allowed to sell the paintings.
Under the law passed in 2000, all claims for the restitution of stolen art must be filed by the end of this year. Last week, however, the lower chamber of the Czech parliament voted to postpone that deadline until 2006.
The measure still needs approval by parliament's upper chamber and requires presidential ratification.
Italian police show off paintings saved in major stolen-art investigation
Wed Mar 27, 5:46 AM ET
ROME - Police have recovered more than 50 stolen art works after a three-year investigation based on the confessions of a convicted art thief.
The art, worth more than 2 million euros (dlrs 1.7 million), included a painting that used to hang in the bedroom of a pope, police said. The investigation uncovered stolen art in the homes of 22 people, all of whom are under investigation.
The investigation began in 1999, and was led by a special police unit that looks into art crimes. Authorities have tried to find the rightful owners of the works. When impossible, the art becomes state property.
The art thief, whose name was not released, was sentenced in 1999 to more than 10 years in prison. After a month behind bars, he started to talk, supplying a list of stolen works and where they were, police said Tuesday.
Among the stolen art was "Madonna (news - web sites) and Child" by Sebastiano Conca, which once belonged to Leo XII, who was pope from 1823 to 1829, two works by Venetian painter Giambattista Tiepolo, and a painting by 17th century artist Luca Giordano. Some works had been stolen more than 20 years ago, police said.
Appeals court orders mediation in international art dispute
Wed Mar 27, 4:57 AM ET
LOS ANGELES - A federal appeals court ordered mediation to resolve a dispute between the Austrian government and a woman trying to recover six Gustav Klimt paintings she claims were taken from her uncle by the Nazis in 1938.
Maria V. Altmann believes the Austrian Gallery and the Republic of Austria are illegally holding the paintings, which are worth about dlrs 150 million. A federal judge ruled last year that her lawsuit could continue in U.S. courts, but Austria's attorneys appealed the decision, saying the American court system lacked jurisdiction.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals did not address the jurisdiction issue but said a resolution may be reached through mediation.
"This panel is of the view that mediation could bring a resolution that would serve the parties better than results achieved through litigation," said the March 20 court order.
The three-judge panel said a mediator would report back to them every month to give an update on the negotiations.
Scott Cooper of Proskauer Rose LLP, which is representing Austria, said the court order was not a victory for either side.
"It's hard for me to imagine that either side would view this as anything but a procedural step in the process," he said.
Austria contends that the paintings were willed to the National Gallery by Altmann's aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer. The family countered that she made a nonbinding request to her husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, to hand over the paintings after his death.
Altmann, 86, filed suit in August 2000, seeking the return of the paintings, which she said were stolen by the Nazis from her uncle in 1938.
Her uncle, who died in exile in Switzerland in 1945, willed his substantial estate from the sugar industry to his niece and her two siblings. Altmann is the only one of the three still living.
The lawsuit alleges that Austria is not entitled to immunity because the paintings were stolen by the Nazis when they overran the country and is in violation of international law.
The paintings are considered valuable in the art world. Klimt was a founder of the Vienna Secession art movement that for many became synonymous with Jugendstil, the German and central European version of art nouveau.
Among the paintings are the "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I," a gold-encrusted work treasured as an early landmark of Austrian modernism. The portrait was delivered to the Austrian Gallery with a letter reading "Heil Hitler."
Attorneys for both Altmann and the Austrian government said they are willing to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court