Dutch Old Master hands to Jewish Dealer’s heirs

Dutch Old Master

"A German casino will return a Dutch Old Master to the heirs of a Jewish art dealer persecuted by the Nazis and forced to flee Germany more than 70 years ago.


“The Masters of the Goldsmith Guild in Amsterdam in 1701,” by Juriaen Pool II, was in the Dusseldorf art gallery of Max Stern until 1937 -- the year Stern was forced to liquidate his gallery and flee Germany, according to Stern’s estate. 


The painting moved to a gallery in Wiesbaden and was bought by Spielbank Bad Neuenahr GmbH, located in a spa town south of Bonn, after World War II.


The estate is managed by three universities: Concordia and McGill in Montreal and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Pool painting is only the ninth of about 400 missing works to be recovered. The handover will take place in a ceremony tomorrow at the Amsterdam Museum in the Dutch capital."



Stern fled Germany shortly after the Lempertz auction and reached Paris in December 1937 with nothing but a suitcase. He set up a new art dealership, first in Britain and then later in Montreal. He died in 1987 without children, leaving the bulk of his estate to the universities.


In 2002, the colleges began a campaign to recover the lost art, creating the Max Stern Art Restitution Project, administered by Concordia. The Dutch government returned an oil painting by Jan Brueghel the Younger, “Allegory of Life and Water,” to the Max Stern estate last November.


Pool (1665-1745) was a portrait artist who became court painter to the Elector of Palatinate Johann Wilhelm.

Portrait Of A Gentleman

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German Casino Hands Dutch Old Master to Jewish Dealer’s Heirs - Bloomberg: