Does the Norton Simon Hold Art Wrongfully Sold after Nazi Seizure?

Anything to
sneak in a
picture of a
naked man.

The LA Times today reported on the continuing legal dispute over the twin paintings of Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. My first thought on seeing the article was, "funny, I could swear that I’ve seen a Cranach Adam and Eve pair. I had. There’s a similar pair of paintings at the Uffizi in Florence. I’ve seen those. On a personal note, it’s amusing that I’ve been to the Uffizi twice, but never to the Norton Simon. Maybe I should go.

And maybe I should go soon, since a recent ruling in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals gave new life to a lawsuit that claims that the Cranach paintings were illegally seized by the Nazis during World War II and never appropriately repatriated.

The two paintings hung in a church in Kiev, until the Soviet Union seized them as national property and sold them at auction in Berlin in 1931. So far, regrettable but maybe legal. The pairings were bought by Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer in the Netherlands. When Germany invaded the country, they were seized by the Nazis. After the war, the Dutch government sold the repatriated painting to a Russian aristocratic family, the Stroganoffs, who made a claim that the painting had been their property when the Soviets seized it in the 1920s.

---

You can follow my blog on Twitter (@impofthediverse) or on Facebook. If you like this post, share it with your friends. If you have a comment just for me, e-mail me at impofthediverse@gmail.com.

---

This blog runs solely on ego! Follow this blog! Comment on this post! Let me know that you want to read more of it!