(CN) - An heir's long quest for the return of two 16th century paintings stolen from her father-in-law by Nazi Reichsmarschall Herman Göring does not conflict with federal policy, the 9th Circuit ruled Friday. Marei Von Saher has been working for seven years to force Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum of Art to return two life-size panels of Adam and Eve painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1530. She claims they were looted from her late husband's father, Dutch art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, during World War II.
The panels once hung in Göring's country house outside of Berlin.
Goudstikker, who was Jewish, escaped the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands only to die a short time later when he fell from a ship on his way to South America. He left behind a black notebook that listed the contents of his art collection, including the Cranach panels. (how convenient!!)
The panels had hung for some 400 years in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Kiev, Ukraine, until they were moved to the Art Museum at the Ukrainian Academy of Science in Kiev under the Soviet Union. The Soviets put them and other state-owned art up for auction in 1931, eventually falling into Goudstikker's hands.
Further complicating their provenance, the panels may have been seized by Soviet authorities from the Stroganoff family collection in Russia before being sold at auction to Goudstikker.
The Dutch government, after suggesting that Goudstikker's wife, Desi, had voluntarily sold the panels and other artworks to the Nazis, passed them to George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff in 1966 without informing Desi and her son Edo, both of whom had since become U.S. citizens. The Norton Simon Museum acquired the panels from Stroganoff in 1971.
Poster Comment:
This is part of the ongoing looting of art by jews world-wide: they sold their art to the Germans and have been pissed-off ever since because of the appreciation in value of various works of art. They always come up with a "family black book" as proof of provenance. In this instance, a solid case can be made that the panels in question rightfully belong to the church in Kiev, Ukraine.