Blitz Bureau
THE Tate Britain gallery is set to reunite the great-grandchildren of a Belgian Jewish art collector with a painting looted from his home by the Nazis, officials said.
“Aeneas and his Family Fleeing Burning Troy” was stolen from the home of Samuel Hartveld after he fled Antwerp with his wife in May 1940.
The artwork by English painter Henry Gibbs was one of hundreds of thousands the Nazis plundered from Jewish families during World War II.
Their restitution has been a slow process, often involving legal battles and complex international searches.
The return of the 1,654 oil painting will mark the latest triumph for a special panel set up by the UK Government to investigate such works that have ended up in Britain’s public collections. The Spoliation Advisory Panel ruled the “Aeneas” painting was “looted as an act of racial persecution” and has arranged for it to be returned to Hartveld’s heirs in the coming months, the UK Government’s culture department said.
A handover date has not yet been confirmed but Hartveld’s family said they were “deeply grateful.” “This decision clearly acknowledges the awful Nazi persecution of Samuel Hartveld and that the ‘clearly looted’ painting belonged to Mr Hartveld, a Jewish Belgian art collector and dealer,” the trust representing Hartveld’s heirs and relatives said.
Arts Minister Chris Bryant praised the panel for “helping to reunite families with their most treasured possessions”, calling it “the right decision”. The painting, which is not currently displayed by the Tate, depicts scenes from Virgil’s epic Latin poem the Aeneid, and is believed to be a commentary on the English Civil War.
