Art looting is commonly recognized as a central feature of Nazi expropriation, in both the Third Reich and occupied territories.
Including interviews that have never before been published, Museum Worthy deftly examines the appropriation of Nazi art Plunder by Postwar governments and highlights the increasingly successful Postwar art recovery and restitution process..
This appropriation of plundered assets endured without controversy until the mid-1990s, when activists and journalists began challenging the governments\' right to hold these items, ushering in a period of cultural property litigation that endures to this day.
They included paintings by traditional and modern masters, such as Rembrandt, Cranach, Rubens, Van der Weyden, Tiepolo, Picasso, and Matisse.
The custodianships included more than six hundred works in Belgium, five thousand works in the Netherlands, and some two thousand in France.
This policy extended the dispossession of Jewish owners wrought by the Nazis and their collaborators well into the twenty-first century.
Following cultural property norms of the time, the governments created custodianships over the unclaimed pieces, without using archives in their possession to carry out thorough provenance (ownership) research.
But what happened to looted art that was never returned to its rightful owners? In France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, Postwar governments appropriated the most coveted unclaimed works for display in museums, embassies, ministries, and other public buildings.
Well publicized restitution cases, such as that of Gustav Klimt\'s luminous painting featured in the film Woman in Gold, illustrate the legacy of Nazi looting in the art world today.
After the war, the famed Monuments Men (and women) recovered several hundred thousand pieces from the Germans\' makeshift repositories in churches, castles, and salt mines.
Art looting is commonly recognized as a central feature of Nazi expropriation, in both the Third Reich and occupied territories
