"Stolen" El Greco heads home

Some aver that collectors should avoid any artwork that lacks a perfect provenance. But few works' past ownership can be securely documented in any depth; this article discusses a pedigree that is particularly complicated and obscure:

An El Greco painting displayed recently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was returned Thursday to the Greek museum that owns it after a state judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming it had been stolen by Nazis at the end of World War II.

Harold Holzer, a spokesman for the Met, said that the painting, "Mount Sinai," was returned to the Historical Museum of Crete, which had lent it to the Met for its El Greco exhibition, which closed Jan. 11. . .

In recent years numerous lawsuits have been filed to recover paintings looted during World War II. But this may be one of the most convoluted cases because of conflicting theories about who looted it and who owned it after the war.

In addition, the lawsuit was not filed by an heir of the painting's onetime owner, but by the son of an Austrian lawyer, now deceased, who once represented the owner's family. "We know it was stolen at the end of the war," said Konstantin Akinsha, a researcher in Washington who specializes in looted art. "We just don't know by whom."

The Germans? The Russians? And did its prewar owner in fact later repurchase it? No wonder the court released the painting -- not to mention the Federal law providing immunity from seizure for loans to exhibitions from foreign nonprofit institutions. From the NY Times.

Posted by David on January 24, 2004 11:28 AM