Britain's National Gallery says Old Master painting was once owned by Adolf Hitler
Britain's National Gallery said Thursday that an Old Master painting in its collection was once owned by Adolf Hitler and was taken from Germany by an American journalist at the end of World War II.
Art historian Birgit Schwartz says she recognized "Cupid Complaining to Venus" by Lucas Cranach the Elder in a photograph of the Nazi leader's private gallery that is held in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The gallery said it believed Schwartz's identification is correct.
The gallery says the painting was taken from Germany in 1945 by American war correspondent Patricia Lochridge Hartwell, who died in 1998. A relative of Hartwell told the gallery that she had been allowed to take it from a warehouse full of art that was controlled by U.S. forces at the end of the war.
The National Gallery bought the painting in 1963 from a dealer in New York. The dealer said at the time that it was being sold by descendants of a buyer who purchased it at a German auction in 1909.
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Art historian Birgit Schwartz says she recognized "Cupid Complaining to Venus" by Lucas Cranach the Elder in a photograph of the Nazi leader's private gallery that is held in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The gallery said it believed Schwartz's identification is correct.
The gallery says the painting was taken from Germany in 1945 by American war correspondent Patricia Lochridge Hartwell, who died in 1998. A relative of Hartwell told the gallery that she had been allowed to take it from a warehouse full of art that was controlled by U.S. forces at the end of the war.
The National Gallery bought the painting in 1963 from a dealer in New York. The dealer said at the time that it was being sold by descendants of a buyer who purchased it at a German auction in 1909.