A painting stolen from a Jewish art collector Nazis During the Second World War, the house was recovered by relatives of the well-known Dutch SS collaborator Hendrik Seyffardt and is now in the hands of a Dutch journalist and art detective Arthur Brand said Global News.
The famous painting entitled Portrait of a young girl by the Dutch artist Toon Kelder was among those looted Goudstikker collection According to Brand, who called the discovery “the most bizarre case of my entire career,” he is said to have stayed in the home of Seyffardt’s descendants for years. The Guardian reported.
Seyffardt collaborated with the Nazis during Hitler’s invasion of the Netherlands and led a volunteer Waffen-SS unit on the Eastern Front before he was assassinated in 1943.
Seyffardt received a Nazi state funeral in The Hague and received a wreath from Hitler.
Jacques Goudstikker, a famous Dutch Jewish art collector and owner of the painting, died fleeing the invasion, leaving behind more than 1,000 works.
In 2006, his family successfully recovered 200 items stolen by the Nazis that had since come under the control of the Dutch government, according to the Contemporary Jewish Museum.
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The case is similar to a discovery made last year when a Nazi-looted painting – also from the Goudstikker collection – was found in a house in Argentina, where thousands of notorious Nazis and war criminals fled after the war.
During the recent Dutch discovery, Brand told Dutch and British media that he had been approached by a man claiming to be a descendant of Seyffardt and said the painting had hung in the hallways of the house of the SS collaborator’s granddaughter.
According to The Guardian, Seyffardt’s granddaughter said the painting was “Jewish looted art, stolen from Goudstikker. It’s not for sale. Don’t tell anyone.”
The family member then hired Brand, a well-known art detective, to tell the story Dutch branch De Telegraaf that they were ashamed and believed that the work of art should be returned to its rightful owners.
According to the newspaper, the Seyffardt family debated whether to return the item as they claimed they did not know it had been stolen.
“I received it from my mother. Now that you take me to task like that, I understand that Goudstikker’s heirs want the painting back. I didn’t know that,” a relative reportedly told the outlet.
Brand’s research confirmed the painting’s authenticity and traced the sale of the object to an auction in 1940, where he concluded that Seyffardt had purchased the piece from high-ranking Nazi official Hermann Göring, who he said had received the entire collection in the first looting, according to the Dutch news agency.
“The family member sees the public announcement as the only way to hopefully return the painting to the Goudstikker heirs where it rightfully belongs,” Brand told the outlet.
He confirmed to Global on Tuesday that the painting had been given to a Dutch reporter and should be returned to its rightful owners.
From left to right: A Dutch journalist and art detective, Arthur Brand, poses with a recovered painting looted by the Nazis.
Arthur Brand
Last week, another work of art stolen by the Nazis was exhibited at the museum for the first time Orsay Museum in Paris as part of France’s reckoning with Nazi-era looting. The gallery is the first in the museum’s history to be dedicated to orphaned masterpieces of the Nazi era.
The painting by Belgian artist Alfred Stevens was originally intended for Hitler’s planned museum in Linz, Austria. But in 1943 it was moved to Hitler’s Bergheim in the Bavarian region of Germany. The museum was never built after Germany’s defeat.
No heir has ever claimed the painting, and no one knows who owned it before 1942.
– With files from The Associated Press
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