The artwork by German landscape painter Carl Blechen was seized by the Gestapo in 1942 and set to appear in Hitler’s Fürhermuseum.
ADVERTISEMENTCarl Blechen's 'Valley of Mills near Amalfi' (c.1830), stolen during the Nazi era, has been returned to the heirs of its original owner.
The bucolic painting was bought by Dr. D.H. Goldschmidt in Berlin in the early 20th century, and later inherited by his two sons, according to ARTNews.
The Jewish brothers died by suicide after the 1938 November pogroms, also known as Kristallnacht, with their art collection bequeathed to their nephew, Edgar Moor. As Moor had emigrated to South Africa, however, the artworks remained in Berlin and were seized in 1942 by the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.
After being bought by Adolf Hitler’s 'Special Commission Linz' in 1944, Blechen’s landscape was bound for the unrealised Fürhermuseum, as part of a project that would have seen Linz in Austria – Hitler’s hometown – transformed into the Nazi cultural capital.
Having been moved to storage and likely stolen, 'Valley of Mills near Amalfi' was taken into the care of Germany’s federal government in 1952, and legally became state property in 1960.
It was Germany’s Federal Art Administration – which investigates the provenance of the state’s cultural assets to decide if they were confiscated by the Nazis – that restituted Blechen’s work to Moor’s heir.
'Valley of Mills near Amalfi' is the 69th artwork owned by the German state to be returned to its rightful owners, according to Artnet.
“The investigation into the Nazi theft of cultural property is an important part of remembering those persecuted by the Nazi regime,” German Culture Minister Claudia Roth said in a press statement. “With the return of the painting by Carl Blechen, which was confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution, the fates of Arthur and Eugen Goldschmidt as well as Edgar Moor are now becoming a little more visible.”
