Rendering - Week 3.

Stuttgart museum returns looted medieval masterpiece


This article was published by on the TheArtNewspaper site by David D’Arcy (web-only)
on 05 March 2013 and tell us about fundamental questions about the return of "Virgin and Child" painting.
The author says, that The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart has returned Virgin and Child, a 15th-century painting attributed to the Master of Flémalle (1375-1444), to the estate of Max Stern, a German-born Jewish dealer who fled the Nazis and later operated the Dominion Gallery in Montreal.   In addition to that, the author says, that the return of Virgin and Child marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Galerie Julius Stern in Düsseldorf and the tenth anniversary of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project at Concordia University in Montreal, which estimates that at least 400 works that once belonged to Stern are still unrecovered. The author points out , that Virgin and Child was sold with other works after Stern had fled to London, to raise 25,000 Reichsmarks to buy a passport for his mother to leave Germany. Analyzing the situation it’s necessary to admit, that , the painting came into the hands of the Frankfurt art dealer Alexander Haas, who sold it to a Dr Scheufelen in 1939 and that, Scheufelen sold eight paintings to the planned Führermuseum in Linz in 1943, at least one of which came from Haas. Moreover, the reader should not forget that author clearly gives us a thought that tracing the picture’s provenance was complicated by the destruction of Stern’s business records when his London flat was bombed during the Blitz.  It's necessary to admit the fact, that before it is shipped to Canada, the painting will be studied by experts; researchers do not rule out a reattribution and  D'Arcy adds -no plans for exhibition or sale have been announced. The article draws the conclusion that Canada has just assumed the chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which could result in increased funding and more staff for Nazi Era provenance research in Canadian museum collections. In my opinion the Nazi Era was the time of great creative oblivion and annihilating storm for the whole art world. The period of destruction and hidden art treasures had gone, but now we just should use our mind to find some echoes of lost wealth - art wealth.