Art News. Vasari Codex

gavel restitution schedule Oct 30, 2025 visibility 19 link 4 artists, 1 gallery

met museum sued again van gogh painting jewish heirs

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is facing a new lawsuit over Vincent van Gogh's *Olive Picking* (1889), which it sold to a Greek collector in 1972. The suit, filed by heirs of Hedwig and Frederick Stern, alleges the painting was looted from the Sterns when they fled Nazi Germany and should never have entered the Met's collection. The Met bought the work in 1956 for $125,000 and later sold it to the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens, where it is now displayed. A previous 2022 lawsuit in California was dismissed on venue grounds; the heirs are now pursuing the case in New York federal court, arguing the painting was repeatedly trafficked through the city.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 20, 2026 visibility 23 link 6 artists

Rare Books Stolen From Ex-MoMA President’s Home Recovered After Nearly 40 Years

Seventeen rare books, valued at over $2 million and stolen nearly 40 years ago from the Long Island estate of former Museum of Modern Art president John Hay Whitney, have been recovered and will be returned to his descendants. The trove includes a $2 million portfolio of handwritten letters from poet John Keats and first editions of works by James Joyce and Aleister Crowley.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 2, 2026 visibility 19 link 1 artist

Stolen Van Gogh Back on View at Dutch Museum After Dramatic Restoration

A Vincent van Gogh painting, 'The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring,' stolen from the Singer Laren museum in 2020, has been restored and returned to public display at the Groninger Museum. The painting was recovered in 2023 by Dutch police and art sleuth Arthur Brand, and underwent a meticulous, months-long restoration by conservator Marjan de Visser to repair damage and remove historical overpainting.

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gavel restitution schedule Sep 22, 2025 visibility 12 link 5 artists

heirs of jewish collector urge appeals court to reconsider claim to van goghs sunflowers

Heirs of German Jewish banker and art collector Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy have urged the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to revive their lawsuit seeking the return of Vincent van Gogh's *Sunflowers* (1888), which they claim was sold under Nazi duress. The lawsuit, filed in 2022 against Japanese insurer Sompo Holdings, argues that the painting was purchased at a 1987 Christie's auction by Sompo's predecessor, Yasuda, despite provenance indicating Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was a Nazi victim. A lower court dismissed the case in 2024 for lack of jurisdiction, but the heirs contend that the painting's exhibition in Chicago in 2001 establishes sufficient legal ties to Illinois.

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gavel restitution schedule Jul 15, 2025 visibility 16 link 3 artists

art detective arthur brand netherlands national archives

Arthur Brand, a self-proclaimed art detective, recovered 25 documents stolen from the Netherlands National Archives in 2015. The trove includes items on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, such as a 1602 report of the Dutch East India Company’s first meeting, a 1700 report of a visit to Mughal India’s Emperor Aurangzeb, and a ship’s log by 17th-century admiral Michiel de Ruyter. Brand was contacted after a person clearing an attic found the box and showed it to a former history professor. Brand took possession on condition of returning the documents to the National Archives, which had been unaware the items were stolen.

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gavel restitution schedule Sep 22, 2025 visibility 11 link 1 artist

Jewish collector's heirs revive Nazi loot claim to Van Gogh Sunflowers painting

Heirs of Jewish banker and collector Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy are appealing a lower court's dismissal of their lawsuit against Japanese insurer Sompo Holdings over Vincent van Gogh's painting *Sunflowers* (1888-89), valued at $250 million. The plaintiffs—Julius H. Schoeps, Britt-Marie Enhoerning, and Florence von Kesselstatt, representing over 30 beneficiaries—claim the work was sold under Nazi pressure in 1934. Sompo bought the painting in 1987 for a record $25 million at Christie's London. The case was heard by a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on 17 September 2025, under the 2016 Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act.

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gavel restitution schedule Aug 4, 2025 visibility 13 link 10 artists

Museums in New York and Los Angeles receive collection of 63 Modern works

The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation has announced the distribution of its 63-work collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and modern art among three major US museums: the Brooklyn Museum (29 works), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA, 6 works), and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, 28 works). The collection includes pieces by Chaïm Soutine, Edgar Degas, Amedeo Modigliani, Vincent van Gogh, Édouard Manet, and Paul Cézanne. The foundation, established in the 1950s by Brooklyn-born businessman Henry Pearlman and his wife Rose, had long-term loans to the Princeton University Art Museum and organized traveling exhibitions before deciding to permanently place the remaining works.

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gavel restitution schedule Apr 23, 2025 visibility 12 link 9 artists

Swiss Bührle Foundation reaches settlement with heirs of Jewish collector over Manet’s ‘La Sultane’

The foundation overseeing the Bührle collection has reached a settlement with the heirs of Jewish collector Max Silberberg, allowing Édouard Manet's painting 'La Sultane' (c. 1871) to remain on display at the Kunsthaus Zurich. The painting was purchased in 1953 by Emil Bührle, a Swiss arms dealer who sold to both Allies and Nazis during WWII and benefited from slave labor. Silberberg, forced to sell his villa to the SS in 1935 and later deported to Auschwitz, had consigned the work in 1932, but his heirs argue the 1937 sale to dealer Paul Rosenberg was a consequence of Nazi persecution. The settlement terms are confidential.

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