(AFP) - Two valuable paintings of former Dutch masters, despoiled by the Nazis in the late 1930s, were returned to the beneficiaries of a German Jewish art dealer exiled to Canada, the Max-Stern Foundation said Monday. The paintings, "Ships in Distress on a Stormy Sea," by the marine artist Jan Porcellis (1584-1632), and "Landscape with Goats" by the animal painter Willem Buytewech the Younger (1625-1670), were recovered from an auction in Germany, which facilitated their restitution.
These are the 14th and 15th paintings to be returned to the foundation, whose mission is retrieving artwork looted by the Nazis. The foundation is named for for Max Stern, a German Jew forced by the Nazis in 1937 to close his art gallery in Dusseldorf and sell more than 400 paintings at low prices in order to be allowed to flee to England and then to Canada.
The paintings were presented to the foundation and its three beneficiary institutions, Concordia and McGill universities in Montreal and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A new charity named "German Friends of the Hebrew University" will launch a program next year to encourage people to hand over Max Stern's artwork in exchange for a tax deductible receipt.