Nazi-Looted Painting Found Decades Ago Among Amsterdam’s Street Trash Will Be Returned to Jewish Dealer’s Heirs
A painting depicting the interior of Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk and likely by Dutch Golden Age artist Hendrick van der Burgh has been identified as Nazi-looted property from the collection of Dutch Jewish dealer Jacques Goudstikker and will be returned to his heirs. Amsterdam resident Robert van der Hoek said he rescued the work decades ago from a pile of street trash and later contacted De Telegraaf after reading about another Goudstikker-linked painting; he noticed a back label reading “Collectie Goudstikker” with inventory number 1,647. Crime reporter John van den Heuvel and art detective Arthur Brand authenticated the work, with Brand saying he could confirm “with 100 percent certainty” that it matched an entry in Goudstikker’s black leather notebook documenting more than 1,000 paintings. Goudstikker fled the Netherlands in 1940 during the Nazi invasion, died aboard the SS Bodegraven, and left behind a collection of about 1,400 paintings that was looted; the Dutch government restituted 202 paintings to his heirs in 2006.
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This story was covered in Restitution Reckonings and Museum Scandals Unravel