Mauritshuis to restitute 17th-century Dutch painting after research reveals it belonged to renowned Jewish dealer

The Mauritshuis in The Hague will return Jan van Goyen’s 1651 oil-on-paper painting “Fishermen by the Lakeshore” to the heirs of Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker after provenance research linked it to his collection. The museum bought the work in 1967 for 58,000 guilders (about £6,000 at the time), but new findings connected it to Goudstikker’s dealership, which was taken over during the Nazi era and involved 1,113 works, some later entering Hermann Göring’s collection. Dutch culture minister Rianne Letschert agreed to follow advice from the Dutch Restitutions Committee, which found the loss of possession involuntary because Goudstikker’s widow did not consent to the transactions. The painting will be returned to Marei von Saher, widow of Goudstikker’s only son Eduard, reflecting a post-2020 shift in Dutch restitution policy toward more “humanity, transparency and goodwill.”

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