Highlights from Senate Judiciary Committee hearing held on 7 June 2016 regarding S. 2763.

loosely transcribed by Marc Masurovsky

Note: The questions and answers might not have been rendered using those exact words. Hence, in many instances, the gist of the exchanges between Senators and witnesses has been provided as carefully as possible. Should there by any misrepresentations, they are my sole responsibility.

Preamble

12:11 pm: After waiting in a hallway for nearly three hours, we are inside a near empty meeting room inside the Dirksen Building waiting for the inevitable. The lobbyists for the art market are huddled in a corner, dressed in appropriately expensive outfits, mostly dapper men, not a single strand of hair out of place, caricatures of male fashion models.

Act One: The Testimonies

The hearing began at one in the afternoon.

Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex) declared that heirs should come forward to achieve just and fair solutions. The proposed legislation sets up a period of six years during which they must discover their objects and claim them. It eliminates laches and statutes of limitations. However, « claimants are given a chance but that chance should not last forever. »

No sooner than he entered the hearing room, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)  announced that he was going to leave in five minutes because of a lunch. Before leaving, he announced that there is work to be done, reclaiming art that had been stolen, even though the statute of limitations has passed. Schumer asked Ronald Lauder about the actress, Helen Mirren, who had played the role of Maria Altmann in her historic bid for restitution of her family’s Klimt paintings held at the Belvedere in Vienna. 

Schumer expressed his gratitude to the movie « Woman in Gold» which paved the way to give claimants their day in court. Morally it is the right thing to do. S. 2763 will be a drop of justice in an ocean of injustice. He also took the opportunity to take full credit for S. 2763 and asked that the bill be passed as soon as possible. Then he left the room.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex), in his introductory remarks, evoked D-day, the liberation of Nazi camps, the discoveries of stolen treasures in Europe, « not just spoils of war, » but the fruit of Nazi policies stretching back to 1933. « The Nazi goal was to dehumanize the Jewish people, leading to the Final Solution… We are still trying to cope with the consequences of the Holocaust. Today it’s about looted art, the ‘greatest displacement of art in human history.’ Many works found their way into American museums, often by happenstance. It has been difficult for claimants to prove their losses, due to absence of documentation.

The HEAR Act (S. 2763) is intended to ease the burden on families by establishing a six year suspension of the statute of limitations, during which cases can be filed on the merits which will not be thwarted by technical legal defenses. Families are encouraged to come forward and make known their claims and steps taken to achieve fair and just solutions (Washington Principles), resolve claims expeditiously based on the June 2009 Terezin Declaration. Senator Cruz acknowledged that there were many issues « on which we disagreed. However bipartisan cooperation made the bill a reality. »

Senator Cornyn left the room.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) declared that this hearing is a milestone to ensure that this Congress speaks on the side of justice. He discussed his family’s escape from Europe and the loss of life for those who remained behind. « Time is long past to return these ill-gotten gains of that unspeakable horror. » Echoing Cruz’s words, he mentioned that the destruction of documentation had aggravated the theft. Statutes of limitations should not be invoked to deny justice.

It is already starting to feel like theater.

Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) thanked the witnesses for appearing. « We need to fulfill our commitment to return the artwork to its rightful owners. And when the senators are ready to place the bill on the agenda, we will put it on the agenda. » Strong words whose import we did not realize at the time because of Grassley’s close ties to the American museum lobby.

The witnesses were sworn in.

Ronald Lauder, representing the World Jewish Restitution Organization, indicated that he represented Jewish people everywhere. After the war, art theft was continued by governments, museums. People who should have known better participated in this. That’s what brings us together today. How do we render just and fair decisions for art works in dispute and still missing ? We’d like to see every piece of art returned to rightful owners. A confiscated work of art may have been purchased with good intentions, without knowing that it was stolen.

The United States committed itself to recover works of art that had been looted, by endorsing the Washington Principles and the Terezin Declaration.

According to Lauder, there are museums in the US which run the clock to allow the statute of limitations to kick in in order not to return the art. They feel no need to uphold the Washington Principles [of December 1998].

The HEAR Act provides that claims should not be denied because of the passage of time and especially because they would not have had knowledge. Once the claimants have knowledge, they should not wait and they should file their case within a six year period to be heard without technical defenses used against them.

Why should we care now ? We should care deeply. Denying the justice is wrong and perpetuates the crimes of the Nazis. Behind every stolen work of art, a murder was committed. If people are interested in justice, they should support this legislation.

Helen Mirren recounted Maria Altmann’s saga. As an actress, Mirren had to go on her own journey and put Altmann’s memories in her mind. She read a lot of research material, to render the absolute reality of those days when Altmann lost everything and had to flee Vienna. In her view, lack of transparency, lack of access to information and the lack of assurances that they could have their day in court discouraged the victims. « The right thing to do is to return the art to its rightful owner. The act of removing the art by the Nazis was unconscionable. »

In her words, "Restitution is more than reclaiming a good. It’s a moral imperative. Art restitution has very little to do with financial gain, it is about retaining their (the Jewish people’s)history, their culture, their memories and most importantly their families. Maria’s story is a story of noble justice, it deserves to be told by future generations."

And finally, Mirren hit it on the nose :

« Art is a reflection of memories. Dispossession loses memories. It’s like having no family. Lives of so many people could be rejuvenated. Greed, self-interest will always be with us. Justice is so much more difficult. We all dream of justice. We have the ability to make changes today. »

Monica Dugot, a senior executive at Christie’s auction house in New York took no position on the HEAR Act. However, she shared her personal experiences as a restitution advocate while at the Holocaust Claims Processing Office in New York and then as a senior executive at Christie’s overseeing restitution matters. She made a point of emphasizing that smaller looted pieces were recirculating and that was inevitable. And yet the emotional value of the art works is beyond estimates.

Thorough due diligence protects Christie’s reputation on the market. Its role is that of an intermediary or a broker, a neutral third party between current possessors who consign their objects for sale and those claiming the pieces as their stolen property. The choices are either restitution or a negotiated financial settlement which might lead to the sale of the piece.

« We vet all pre-1945 works that pass through our hands. » Although Christie’s resources are limited, it has handled at least two hundred claims. Ms. Dugot indicated that Christie’s preferred negotiated settlements.

Agnes Peresztegi, representing the Commission for Art Recovery, is committed to assist to the restitution of looted art. In her words, « expropriation is a form of genocide. Works of art removed during an act of genocide should be viewed as permanently tainted. »

The burden has been too often placed on the claimant to prove ownership. She made a point of emphasizing that the HEAR Act would not be retroactive.

It should not extinguish claims in States which are more sympathetic to claimants.

Simon Goodman, a relative of Friedrich Guttman whose vast collection of art works and objects of art was plundered during the German occupation of Holland and France, has spent twenty years « trying to recover Friedrich’s collection. » When his father died in 1994, Simon discovered the correspondence detailing the often-fruitless attempts to recover the family’s objects. The Dutch government wanted to be paid before returning any art work or it simply absorbed looted objects in Dutch state collections.

Simon’s quest began in 1995. In late 1995, a pastel by Degas was found in Chicago. The current possessor, Daniel Searle, claimed that the statute of limitations had run out. He had exercised no digilence at the time of purchase.  In 2002, he found a Nazi inventory of each room in his parents’ house.

Act Two : The Questioning

Senator Cruz: Why are we still working on this ? 

Ron Lauder :  Many records were destroyed. Although families had no records, museums had records and they stonewalled. Lauder wonders whether the hearing would have taken place had the movie [The Woman in Gold] not been made.

Senator Cruz: Has the US lived up to its commitments to resolve claims expeditiously ?

Ron Lauder : Yes and no. Museums tend to stop restitution if the piece being claimed is one of their best pieces. The US has the will to live up to its obligations and the HEAR Act allows the US to do so.

Senator Blumenthal: He credits the movie "The Woman in Gold" to provide support for this cause. 

The HEAR Act is an exceedingly modest proposal for thousands of people who have been waiting to present their case. I felt anger and outrage at the museums and other reputable isntitutions which have invoked these technical obstacles. I won’t name them. They have been complicit in this injustice. Indiretly aided and abetted the thuggery of the Nazis. Made a pretense of following the rules of morality. Do you think we can enlist museums to be on the right side of justice ?

Ron Lauder : yes, you can. No museum wants to go on hanging on to Nazi-looted art. If we can, we win the battle. Too often, these museums have made it so expensive for claimants to do the work. We’ve had dozens of claimants complaining that they were making it very costly for them to recover their objets. This HEAR Act levels the playing field.

Agnes Peresztegi: Museums take the claims to the legal department and their main duty is to preserve their collection. They feel hesitant to even review the claim. If the HEAR Act could remove this obstacle, museums would be more encouraged to resolve the claims.

Simon Goodman : We acted as soon as we could but gathering evidence was the main uphill battle. Most of it became accessible at the end of the 20th century. It’s a point of honor for me to resolve what is outstanding.

Helen Mirren : As far as I understand, Maria Altmann realized after reading some press articles that something was possible to recover. It took a decade. Very long and difficult battle. She had the advantage of a young lawyer [E. Randol Schoenberg] who came on board. Even if she had wanted to, it would have been difficult. We owe Maria Almann a great deal.

Ron Lauder : 12 years and 4 million dollars of travel and time.

Senator Lee asks a question about laches.

Agnes Peresztegi : When Holocaust survivors came to the US, they were not ordinary citizens. It would be unjust to impose a different level of due diligence on Holocaust survivors.

Senator Lee : laches is an equitable doctrine. The application would be inequitable ?

Agnes Peresztegui : Yes. Theft is an issue of state law. Not federal law.

Senator Lee : Why is this an appropriate use of Federal law ?

Agnes Peresztegui : California tried to address this issue and enacted a state law which addressed Holocaust claims, which was struck down by the 9th circuit, ruling that it could only be addressed by Federal law. The argument was grounded on foreign policy of the US since 1943.

Senator Lee : Is it impossible for any one state to recognize this rule without engaging in foreign policy ?

Agnes Peresztegi: Yes. …The US has a consistent policy regarding the restitution of Nazi looted art.

Senator Lee : this law would not preclude us of doing the same for victims of other genocides ?

Agnes Peresztegi: No, it would not.

Senator Cruz has left the room.

Senator Coombs: how would the HEAR Act support your family if it had been passed when you had filed your claims ?

Simon Goodman : We won the first motion to dismiss. But the family felt that we should settle out of court because we did not know what the outcome of litigation would be. We were on strong moral ground and on weak legal ground. …This bill would be a huge help and establishes a moral record.

Senator Coombs: what info would be different under the HEAR Act ?

Agnes Peresztegi: The HEAR Act will bring certainty. It makes clear where the law stands.

Senator Coombs: are there other ways of delays ?

Monica Dugot: The market needs to convey good title and there should not be any taint on the object. Without making any comments on the bill, the template in place at Christie’s is to look at the facts, case by case.

Senator Coombs: What about ISIS looting cultural artifacts ? What impact does this law have on the appreciation of cultural treasures worldwide ?

Helen Mirren : This is happening to people as we speak. Their lives are taken as well as their history. What affected me the most is the idea of losing all trace of your existence on this planet, even if you survived, nothing, no one to talk to, no pictures, the disappearance of simple human things, this is why this has nothing to do with money, reclaiming one’s place in history.

Senator Tills: How many objects are outstanding ?

Ron Lauder : 2-300,000 major works of art are still outstanding. The lesser ones, we will never know.

Senator Tills : How many objects have you recovered ? and prospects to identify the others ?

Simon Goodman : There is a lot of searching left to do. One important painting entered the NY market in 1955. I have recovered and/or received settlements on 20 ptgs. Received 200 antiques. And there was a recent settlement on two golden clocks with Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany.

Senator Tills : What does a settlement look like ?

Simon Goodman : A settlement is for 40-50% of the value. Weigh that against the cost of going to court. For a painting in Switzerland, we have not a leg to stand on. The consignor is willing to provide 50% of the value.

Senator Tills: What is the Difference between legal systems in the US and Europe.

Agnes Peresztegi: After statute of limitations runs out, title is transferred to the current possessor. In the US, title does not pass. European nations set up standing committees because they could not change the laws. In the US, most of the museums are privately-owned. In Europe, they are publicly-owned. Ministries of culture decide on how museums behave. The US does not have such a government body. Hence you need to change the law, and you can.

Senator Klobuchar (D-MN): She invoked the case of a Leger painting at the Minneapolist Institute of Arts. It took 10years to do the research. Can one reduce that time ?

Monica Dugot : Monica would not comment on the law and asked « Aggie » to intercede.

Agnes Peresztegi: in those days, there were hopes that one central database would answer anyone’s question. Today, there are more digitized data available.

Senator Klobuchar: has international cooperation improved ?

Ron Lauder : Swiss stonewalled. Regarding the Leger, people knew it was stolen. Knowledge is one thing, acting on it is another.

Senator Klobuchar: I am impressed you knew about the painting

Ron Lauder : I am a collector.

Senator Klobuchar: Really ? Just joking.

Helen Mirren : I am here because—supposing someone came to my door, walked into my house and took everything that I owned, forced me to sign a piece of paper handing it over. It was wrong then and it is today. I don’t see any difference. I feel very strongly about it.

Senator Hatch : USHMM’s website to reflect on the lessons of the Holocaust. The HEAR act is part of that legacy. The job is still not over.

Ron Lauder : A major part of the Nazi regime’s mission was to destroy/confiscate art, use the art to make a new Museum in Linz. Art was a critical part of the program.

Senator Franken: He makes reference to the Prague conference of June 2009.
What other measures should be passed to ensure that the US facilitate the return of looted art to rightful owners?

Agnes Peresztegi: We need more info about what museums hold. Museums only display 1/3 of their collections. Museums in the UK undertook to digitize all of their paintings and sculptures. You can publish all the objects in a museum. If there is suspicion in the UK, one can consult the images. Why shouldn’t we know what these museums hold ? There are many creative ways by which to move forward.

Senator Franken : If there were digitization of this info, it would be useful. Christie’s returned objects to many different claimants, how have other parties been involved in misapproprations ?

Monica Dugot : We look at provenance for everything that comes in. A lot of the work that has not been returned is in private hands. We emphasize that every object has clear provenance and if there are questions, we have to look into the history of ownership. It’s only been 10-15 years that provenance has been highlighted. Published sources might be erroneous, so we have to look at everything. The info out there is voluminous and not centralized. We work on deadline which is a problem for us. We have to do thorough provenance research in a matter of weeks. Or a month.

Simon Goodman : MFA&A [Monuments Fine Arts and Archives] could not deal with individual claimants. They returned what they had found to the countries where the objects had been stolen.

At the close of the hearing, Senator Cruz indicated that Chairman Grassley offered to expedite the legislation through the committee. He hoped to see some justice after 7 decades. The record will be kept open for 5 business days until June 14, 2016.

The end (for now).

S. 2763: Restitution kabuki

an opinionated piece by Marc Masurovsky

Note: The title was inspired by a close friend who is intimately involved in art restitution matters.

The authors of Senate Bill 2763, the “Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act” (HEAR Act), have as a major sponsor Republican Senator and former presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Another Republican co-sponsor is Senator Cornyn. Neither of them has been known to utter a word or express a single public thought about Holocaust claimants and/or about Nazi looted art. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York, who is no friend of art restitution advocates, is a co-sponsor of S.2763 with Senator Blumenthal from Connecticut.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, June 7, 2016, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing regarding Senate Bill 2763. The witnesses included Ron Lauder speaking on behalf of the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), Monica Dugot of Christie’s, Agnes Peresztegi of the Commission for Art Recovery, Dame Helen Mirren, actress noted for her role as Maria Altmann in “The Woman in Gold”, and Simon Goodman, one of the heirs to the collection and property of the late Friedrich Gutmann.

Let’s deconstruct the title of the proposed bill:

Expropriated Art: is “expropriated” a legal term or just an evocative word to denote forcible removal without the owner’s consent? It might have been selected so that an acronym could be used to publicize the bill—in this case, HEAR. What if we had used displaced or misappropriated as substitutes for “expropriated”? Then we would get HDAR or HMAR. Not very elegant.

Does this proposed legislation cover all acts of illegal misappropriation of Jewish-owned cultural assets between 1933 and 1945? Or does the proposed legislation only cover those instances where a “public agency”, writ large, orders the “taking” of private property from Jews? Depending on how you answer these questions, the field of objects covered by this proposed legislation could change rapidly.

Recovery: it’s a word like any other, but does it actually mean “restitution” or simply the act of “recovering”? Merriam-Webster defines “recovery” as “the return of something that has been lost, stolen, etc.” What would have occurred if the Act had been called the “Holocaust Expropriated Art Restitution Act”? It would have been far more specific and more claimant-friendly. Then, the framers of the act could not be accused of playing footsy with the art market by keeping the wording ambiguous, because “recovery” is an ambiguous term, much as recovering from addiction leaves room for a relapse. Why ambiguous? Well, US troops “recovered” looted art throughout "liberated" Germany and Austria. Did it mean that it was “restituted”? No, it simply meant that it had to be shipped to countries where local officials would then “restitute” the objects to their rightful owners, or not.

Why the ambiguity? Is S. 2763 really a hat tip to the art market, a flirty wink to indicate that, no worries, your interests will be taken into account when this law finally passes?  In other words, “recovery” might also mean “just and fair” which usually means “financial settlement” where the seller or current possessor of the claimed looted item gets to hang on to the prized ownership title to the looted object.

“Recovery” is another way of saying that the art market continues to hold tremendous sway on how restitution works for Holocaust-era claimants.

At the end of the day, so the expression goes, it is always a business decision how a looted object gets "returned” and “recovered.”

Are claimants’ rights genuinely protected by S. 2763? Or is this bill a subversive sop to the art market and a gift to the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) and to the American Alliance of Museums (AAM)? These two groups have fought for years to put an end to the claims process, callously indifferent and disdainful about how cultural objects are stolen, misappropriated, expropriated, displaced, whatever the word is to connote illegality.

As currently drafted, S. 2763 might be nothing more than a final attempt to address art restitution in the United States, offering the art market the equivalent of a social peace during a six-year period of claims hopefully unimpeded by statutes of limitations and laches (assuming that the final version of S 2763 keeps out laches, no guarantees given!). Claimants would presumably get a « fair day in court » where their claims may be assessed solely on their merits, again within a six year framework or less, depending on when the claimed item had been located and identified and the evidence garnered to back the claim.

S. 2763 is looking more and more like a thinly disguised message to claimants,.a last opportunity to file for restitution assuming that they know where their object is and they have the proper documentation to support their claim. If not, how will they obtain the evidence in the time allotted to them? How will claimants afford a court action against a current possessor especially if it is a museum or a billionaire collector with access to a well-supplied war chest ?

S. 2763 stacks the cards against claimants, however which way you look at it. Even if they do manage to garner the documentation, claimants will not be able to afford the hefty litigation fees associated with a proceeding to obtain restitution.

It is not possible to endorse S.2763 if a mechanism is not explicitly created which ensures that claimants will be supported in their attempt to recover their lost property. The Federal government should subsidize this commitment for at least ten years to ensure that claims are properly addressed and have a fair chance of being heard, by minimizing research and legal costs to claimants.

S. 2763 favors wealthy claimants with access to significant means to support research into their claims and legal action to recover identified objects which sit either in public or private collections. It is clearly not designed to help the vast majority of claimants, who lost cultural assets that are not museum-worthy. It provides succor to the very few, those who are familiar with the claims process and are able to demand the return of high-end items which their lawyers are willing to recover for them at rates the average claimant cannot possibly afford.

The claims process has always been skewed towards those who have lost cultural assets considered of great value in today’s market and towards whom gravitate most lawyers as well as market players.

Lessons from "The Orpheus Clock"

An opinion piece by Angelina Giovani

The Orpheus Clock was one of my favorite books of 2015. Since the book came out last August, it has received great reviews on ‘various online news outlets’ (Publishers’ Weekly, The Independent, New York Post) by people who do not seem to have read the entire book as some facts indicate, almost all of which refer to the author having produced a very good detective story. Other reviews failed to point out is the importance of this book and what we can learn from it.

Orpheus Clock

One does not need to be a claimant seeking restitution of looted art or doing research on one’s own family history to learn from this book. If we strip the plot of the names of individuals involved, we are left with an outline of information that researchers need to search for when conducting their quest. Despite the fact that the story told in The Orpheus Clock is a personal one, its lessons are simple and very useful. 

For instance, this is what I learned:

You do not need to be a trained provenance researcher to do good research and achieve results. This is quite a relief since there is a general lack of provenance research training worldwide and academic programs focused on provenance issues are so few that you only need half the fingers of one hand to count them. Simon Goodman, the author of The Orpheus Clock, has neither a background in art history nor in international law. As with most research projects, his journey began by following his own curiosity and taking the time to read documents that he had uncovered in boxes left behind by his late father. Taking the time to actually engage with a document and understand what it is about is the first challenge. For a novice, it might take longer, but nowadays one can google one’s way into the unknown, so in theory ignorance is no longer an excuse.

Very early on in The Orpheus Clock, we learn how important it is to be realistic when deciding how to organize and conduct research. Depending on the number of people involved in the process, one may have to follow different paths. In Simon Goodman’s case, the starting point for him and his brother Nick was to investigate works by a different artist, Degas and Renoir respectively. Although the impressionist works stolen from their family were part of the same collection, they had taken different journeys, hence the importance of looking at each work individually. As we follow Simon Goodman’s research we become aware that objects ended up in certain places for a logical reason.

This brings us to the next point, which is the importance of sharing what we learn from our research. It is understandable that most researchers are reluctant to share particular details and finds on cases in which they are involved, but the vast amount of information that is accumulated during the research process can be helpful to others. Simon Goodman addresses this point when he talks about coming across objects and information that helped other families involved in similar quests for justice—restitution of their looted objects.

Throughout The Orpheus Clock, one question kept coming up: "Is it easier to research something when it belongs to you?” The answer is probably: yes. Although the level of difficulty has nothing to do with personal involvement, emotions are a different thing. It is reasonable to assume that if you are personally invested in the object, it will affect your level of motivation. However, this should not make a difference in the final outcome of the research.

What does make a difference though, is the kind of object you are seeking. It is important to be realistic from the very beginning of what is possible and what is not. Looking for an Impressionist work or an Old Master painting, can be viewed as a more reasonable undertaking, than doing research on a piece of jewelry, on silverware and furniture. We have to accept the fact that some things are irrevocably lost and the inability to locate them has nothing to do with our research skills. It is no coincidence that following Simon Goodman’s research, the first cases that he and his family won involved some of the most famous pieces in the Guttman collection.

To conclude, it is important to focus on the ultimate goal of the exercise in provenance, which is matching the object to its owner. We have to make sure that the object’s history is told in its entirety and relieve it of the ‘looted’ label that stains its name, while giving the rightful owner the ability and freedom to decide its destiny.

Interview with Simon Goodman, author of "The Orpheus Clock"

 Interview conducted by Angelina Giovani

[Editor's note] Simon Goodman is the grandson of Friedrich Gutmann, a Dutch Jewish banker whose possessions were plundered during the German occupation of the Netherlands and who paid with his life at the hands of the Gestapo. One of the paintings that Gutmann lost was a pastel by Edgar Degas entitled "Landscape with Smokestacks", that ended up in the collection of an American billionaire, Daniel Searle, a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago. The case became known as Goodman v. Searle and led to a bruising David against Goliath-style battle between the Goodman heirs and an extremely wealthy man who refused to return the pastel, on principle, arguing his good faith in the acquisition of the looted work. The outcome was mixed as the case led to a settlement.  Twenty years later, Simon Goodman has penned “The Orpheus Clock” which recounts his family’s history and the ordeals it faced during the tumultuous 20th century and its endless quest for justice to recover lost works and objects of art and, with them, a piece of the family's plundered memory and spirit. 

Landscape with Smokestacks, Edgar Degas

Mr.Goodman, when did you decide you wanted to write "The Orpheus Clock"? Was there a particular moment or event that triggered your need to tell the story?

I had the idea to write “The Orpheus Clock” almost 20 years ago. While researching two Degas paintings from my grandfather’s collection, I was angry to discover that he was not mentioned in any of the catalogues raisonné about that artist. I was shocked by how quickly my family had gone from fame and fortune to almost complete obscurity. It became my mission to make sure my family would not be forgotten. It was also my process for getting to know the family I never knew.

The Orpheus Clock

Why did you decide to use the Orpheus Clock as the title of the book? Would you say there is an underlying metaphorical relation between the ancient Greek myth and some of the events in the book?

The Orpheus Clock, I feel, symbolizes obviously the passage of time and in this case the reversal or return of my family’s fortunes. After decades of suffering the clock’s hand points towards happier times. Meanwhile the Orpheus legend symbolizes the will power to make great change. The Clock also represents my largely successful attempt to reunite the remaining dispersed fragments of my family, many of whom had never known each other before. Finally the restitution of this remarkable clock is also significant because it was my first direct restitution from Germany.

Most of us find it hard to even imagine what it would mean to be left with tens of boxes containing documents of the kind you were presented with. Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you and your brother hadn’t decided to go through them?

I don’t think there was ever any doubt that my brother and I would continue our father’s work once we understood the enormous extent of what had been taken from our family. That being said, I have often wondered how different my life (and many others) would have been had my father’s girl-friend decided not to pack up all his old papers – it would have been so easy for somebody to throw them all away assuming they were obsolete and worthless.

Almost half of the book is dedicated to telling the story of your ancestors. When did you start tracing your family’s genealogy? Was it a parallel process to locating the art works or did you treat it as a separate process? Could you walk us through it?

Tracing my family’s genealogy and tracking our lost artworks went hand-in-hand. The works of art gave me an insight into the characters of those that had collected and cherished them. Also by following my grandfather and great-grandfather’s footsteps, as the amassed their collections, I gained invaluable insight into their habits and lifestyles. Growing up after the war with very little family, it was important to me to be able to establish my roots. Now that I have managed to document hundreds of relatives and ancestors I have discovered a huge family that I am justly proud of.

The first part of the book does a brilliant job in painting a vivid picture of events at the turn of the century. There are parts in the book that make reference to what Eugen, Louise, Fritz and others might have felt or said in certain occasions. Were these excerpts derived from actual letters and/or written records or are they to be attributed to your attempt to give them a voice and bring them closer to the reader?

Fritz and Lili Gutmann

Virtually all our family records and letters disappeared during the war. Most of my recreation of the Gutmann family is based on what I was able to glean from my father’s notes and his sister’s recollections. A small amount of detail has also been preserved by the historical society of the Dresdner Bank. The rest I have extrapolated from snippets about the family that I found in old books and periodicals.

If you had to single out one of the moments in your mission to recover your family’s treasure as the most emotionally charged, which one would you pick? Why?

There have been many highly emotional events concerning the recovery of my family’s treasures.

"Sensuality," by Franz von Stuck

However one of the highlights of my saga is definitely when the Franz von Stuck “Sensuality” was taken down off the wall by the man who had had it for 40 years. He then helped me carry it to my car, where we put it carefully in the trunk. This was perhaps the closest I have got to a perfect restitution: no money changed hands and the legal work was kept to a minimum. After much conversation and deliberation the collector just decided to do the right thing. This was an intensely gratifying moment. The return of the Baldung-Grien comes fairly close behind, whereas all the other cases have involved considerable blood, sweat and tears.

In 1991, your father wrote a small memoir summarizing his attempts to recover the artworks and is quoted as saying “Only the lawyers made money”. Almost a quarter of a century later, is that an accurate statement?   

My experience with lawyers has been fairly similar to that of my father’s, which is why I have trained myself to do my own research and then approach the appropriate collector, museum or government directly. In fact my approach as the representative of the family and the direct heir has stood me in good stead. The possessor of the artwork is less likely to engage expensive lawyers of their own; in contrast a fruitful dialogue is often the result.

As you now know first hand from your experience, provenance research is an extensive, long and expensive process. What changes would you make to the‘mechanisms’ currently in place that would encourage more claimants to come forward and help correct the elitist approach that is often taken when deciding whether a claim is worth taking forward or not?

I think the reason provenance research has become such a rarified pursuit is largely due to the fact that over the centuries the recording of provenance history has been handled in a very cavalier manner. It has long suited the art business to hide behind these opaque practices. There is no great mystery to art provenance if the data is readily available. Obviously we would all benefit from a national database to which all accredited museums would contribute – galleries too ideally.

Every item has its own history, therefore every case should be treated as an independent search in its own right. But when the number of objects is in the hundreds, time is not on our side and it is impossible to deal with each object individually. Has a systematic approach to methodology come out as a result of your many years of researching many objects at once? Do you have any advice for new researchers who find it overwhelming to research multiple objects at the same time?

My approach to prioritizing my claims is fairly simple. At any given time at the top of the stack is the one I think is the most likely to succeed. The next priority involves the greatest number of pieces that are still in one specific place. Concerning research, I find it very helpful to stay focused on one specific school or medium i.e. Dutch 17th genre painters or Italian baroque bronzes. Collectors and galleries also operate within similar parameters. Invariably when looking for a particular Northern European Mannerist silver sculpture I find several mentions of others that were in my family’s collection.

As you state at the end of the book, your search is still ongoing. Could you share with the readers what your next quest is?
Several cases have been on the back burner while I finished my book. Coming to the fore now is a claim for eleven rare, and very beautiful, Italian hand-painted majolica dishes, which I found a couple of years ago in a Dutch museum. I also expect an imminent settlement for some Renaissance jewelry. Meanwhile I am negotiating with a Bavarian museum for the return of several antiques, mostly Meissen, including some of my grandmother’s coffee cups.  

Sword of Damocles, Avelli

All photos, except the reproduction of "Landscape with Smokestacks" and the book cover were supplied by Simon Goodman.