A museum in Switzerland is to remove five famous paintings from one of its exhibitions while it investigates whether they were looted by the Nazis.
The Kunsthaus Zurich Museum said the decision to remove the paintings comes after the publication of new guidelines aimed at dealing with the artworks that have still not been returned to the families from whom they were stolen during World War II.
The pieces are part of the Emil Bührle collectionnamed after a German-born arms dealer who made his fortune during World War II by making and selling weapons to the Nazis.
The pieces examined are “Jardin de Monet à Giverny” by Claude Monet, “Portrait of the Sculptor Louis-Joseph” by Gustave Courbet, “Georges-Henri Manuel” by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, “The Old Tower” by Vincent van Gogh and 'La route montante' by Paul Gauguin.
The foundation board of the Emil Bührle Collection said in a rack it was “committed to seeking a fair and equitable resolution of these works with the legal successors of the former owners, in accordance with best practices.”
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Earlier this year, 20 countries, including Switzerland, agreed to new best practices from the U.S. State Department on how to deal with art looted by the Nazis. The guidelines were issued to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1998 Washington Conference Principles, which focused on compensating for items stolen or forcibly sold.
Stuart Eizenstat, the US secretary of state's special adviser on the Holocaust, said in March that as many as 600,000 works of art and millions of books and religious objects were stolen during World War II “with the same efficiency, brutality and scale as the Holocaust itself. “
“The Holocaust was not only the greatest genocide in world history,” he said during a speech address at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC “It was also the largest theft of property in history.”
According to the CBS News partner BBCthe principles are an important resource for families seeking to recover looted art, as under Swiss law today no legal claim for restitution or compensation can be made for works from the Bührle collection due to the statute of limitations.
A sixth work in the collection, Edouard Manet's 'La Sultane', was also examined further, but the foundation's board said it did not believe the new guidelines applied to it and that the painting would be considered separately, the BBC reported.
“Due to the overall historical circumstances surrounding the sale, the Foundation is prepared to make a financial contribution to the estate of Max Silberberg for the sake of the tragic fate of the former owner,” the foundation said.
Silberberg was a German Jewish industrialist whose art collection was sold at forced auction by the Nazis. It is believed he was murdered at Auschwitz, a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust.
