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Former Nazi loot to tour

On May 10 the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., will open the first leg of an international tour of paintings from the collection of Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Dutch dealer who fled Amsterdam in 1940 and died the same year. The announcement comes just before an old masters paintings sale at Christie’s in London on Thursday that includes some of the art returned to Goudstikker’s heirs last year.

Goudstikker, his wife and their son fled the Netherlands on May 14, 1940, leaving behind about 1,400 works, which were then looted by the Nazis. About 200 were returned to his heirs by the Dutch government last year in one of the largest restitutions of art seized by the Nazis.

The heirs — Marei von Saher, the widow of Edward, the only son of Desirée and Jacques Goudstikker; and her daughters, Charlène and Chantal — consigned 133 of the paintings to various sales at Christie’s. At the same time they have worked with Peter C. Sutton, an expert on Dutch old master paintings who is the director of the Bruce Museum, to organize an exhibition of some of the others.

“It’s Marei’s local museum,” Mr. Sutton said. “So it makes sense that it starts here.” (Mrs. von Saher and her daughter Chantal von Saher live in Greenwich.)
Read entire article at NYT