'Looted pictures' claim against British Museum (Q63067732)
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news article, Guardian
- Looted pictures claim against British Museum
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | 'Looted pictures' claim against British Museum |
news article, Guardian |
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'Looted pictures' claim against British Museum (English)
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22 May 2019
A claim has been lodged against the British Museum for the return of four beautiful old master drawings which are claimed to have been stolen from a Jewish collector who died in prison after Nazi torture.The claim is the first against a British collection demanding the return of works of art. The only other claim so far was against the Tate, for a Thames landscape, but in that case the owner's descendants sought compensation, not the return of the picture. (English)
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The four drawings are claimed to have belonged to a pre-war collection belonging to Arthur Feldmann a Czech lawyer. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was jailed and tor tured, and his wife died in a concentration camp, while some of his children and relatives fled the country. (English)
1 reference
The four drawings are claimed to have belonged to a pre-war collection belonging to Arthur Feldmann a Czech lawyer. After the Nazi invasion in 1939, he was jailed and tor tured, and his wife died in a concentration camp, while some of his children and relatives fled the country.Since the war, members of his family have been searching for his collection of over 750 drawings.Three of the disputed drawings were bought on behalf of the British Museum at Sotheby's in 1946. The fourth was part of a bequest from Campbell Dodgson, a former BM curator.The claim will ring alarm bells among directors of British collections because the drawings were not identified as having a suspect provenance in the museum's audit of its holdings. (English)