As with the table found in a recently real estate ad in Argentina, chance, luck and vigilance of precious auxiliaries do things well. Two still lifes of the painter Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573-1621), looted during the Second World War, were found during an auction organized by the Apple Tree Auction Center in Newark, in Ohio. Their identification was carried out by the Monuments Men and Women Foundation.
These two Flemish paintings of the 17th century, representing bouquets of flowers, belonged at the time of spoliation to the family of Adolphe Schloss (1842-1910), Jewish art merchant installed in Paris at the end of the 19th century. His collection, specialized in Dutch masters, had 333 works. At the start of the war, they had been hidden in a mansion in the south of France. But in 1943, out of the 333 paintings, 262 were seized by the German authorities to fuel the Hitler museum project in Linz, including the two Bosschaert. Forty-nine works were deposited at the Louvre and then returned in 1946, and 22 ceded to an anonymous buyer. Between 1945 and 1951, 98 pieces were recovered. Today, a hundred have been found. The Schloss collection, one of the most important in Europe in its field, is well documented.
A collector alerted the Sale Foundation in Newark. The experts compared the photographs and inventory numbers S16 and S17 with the Database of the Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP), noting correspondence, in particular thanks to the letter “S” for Schloss, German label of the time. The creator of the Foundation, Robert M. Edsel, went there to confirm the authenticity of the paintings and negotiate with the auction house their withdrawal for a restitution to the heirs. Family lawyers were contacted. “This situation illustrates how well -intentioned individuals can collaborate to rectify the injustices of the Second World War by restoring works of art looted to their legitimate owners “Said Robert Mr. Edsel.
The two works, discovered in a safe not claimed in Texas, were estimated at 2,750 and $ 230, while their real value each exceeds the million euros.
The Men and Women Foundation monuments is a non -profit organization pursuing the action of the MEN monuments, an allied unit responsible for protecting heritage during the war. It works in research and the restitution of missing works. Its president, Anna Bottinelli, praised “Fast and meticulous work” From his teams, recalling that the organization receives requests for researching missing works daily.
In recent years, two paintings from the Schloss collection have also resurfaced. In 2017, Man portrait De Bartholomeus van der Helst appeared at Im Kinski in Vienna, but has not been returned, Austrian legislation protecting the buyer in good faith. The same year, Old man carving his pen From Solomon Koninck, proposed by a Chilean art merchant in New York, was returned in 2019 in the presence of the French authorities.
