Art News. Vasari Codex

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A Lucas Cranach the Elder Masterpiece Once Hung in Hitler’s Munich Apartment

A Lucas Cranach the Elder painting, *Cupid complaining to Venus* (1526–27), once hung in Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment, according to a report by the Art Newspaper. The work was identified in a 1940s photograph published in a 1978 furniture catalog and later in a 2023 article by art historian Birgit Schwarz, who confirmed Hitler's ownership via a 2006 discovery of an album at the Library of Congress. After World War II, American journalist Patricia Lochridge took the painting from a warehouse in Berchtesgaden and smuggled it to the US. The National Gallery in London acquired it in 1963 from A. Silberman Galleries, which falsely claimed it came from the 1909 auction buyer's heir; it had actually been purchased from Lochridge.

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London's Wellcome Collection returns 2,000 manuscripts to the Jain community

London's Wellcome Collection is returning 2,000 Jain manuscripts to the Jain community, the largest such collection outside South Asia. Acquired in 1919 at a low price from a Jain temple in what is now Pakistan, the manuscripts will be transferred to the UK-based Institute of Jainology and deposited at the University of Birmingham. A Memorandum of Understanding is being signed at the House of Commons. The restitution bypasses the country of origin because the Jain community in Pakistan was displaced after the 1947 partition, leaving no suitable depository there.