British Museum must keep Nazi loot, UK judge rules
ABOVE: right, detail from Niccolò dell’Abbate’s Holy Family, left, detail from Martin Johann Schmidt’s Virgin and Child adored by St Elizabeth and the infant St John. Both were looted from Czech Jewish families during the Second World War and now reside in the British Museum. A London high court judge ruled that returning the looted works would be illegal under current British law.
A British judge ruled on Friday that the British Museum cannot return four old masters’ pieces to the heirs of a Czech Jewish lawyer from whom they were looted by Nazis during the Second World War. The British Museum, the judge concluded, is compelled by law under the British Museum Act to keep and protect everything in its collection, regardless of whatever slippery or bloody means those items ended up there. That’s why tired old postcolonial-Tony-Blair England, on whose empire the sun once never set, is still in possession of truckloads of the world’s priceless antiquities, despite its current enfeebled state vis-a-vis colonial bootheel-crushmanship (Iraq is still up in the air as to who’s crushing who).
The four pieces involved in this case are some sketches and drawings that were stolen by Nazi looters from Arthur Feldmann, a Jewish lawyer who was killed during the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. The tragic aspect of the whole affair is that it’s got almost nothing to do with four rather mouldy and uninspired 15th-18th century drawings and almost everything to do with The Elgin Marbles, the collection of Greek statuary that was pilfered from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in 1811 and which Greece has been understandably shrieking to get back ever since. Judge Andrew Morritt of the Chancery Division of the High Court ruled that if he were to order the return of the drawings to the Feldmann heirs, it would open the door to thousands of similar suits for the return of priceless artifacts that the British carried off during the colonial years. The judge was unwilling to do this himself, but hinted strongly that a legislative solution should be found. It’s all dark, messy stuff, terribly interesting and with very high stakes.
LINK: BBC News > Law blocks return of looted art
[…] This might sound familiar, as there have been a number of high-profile lawsuits launched against European countries that have artworks stolen by Nazi looters in their collections. The Klimt paintings in this case are estimated to be worth upwards of $150 million. When exactly the paintings will be transferred from their Belvedere Castle home in Vienna is still up in the air. […]