Tate Britain is expected to return a 17th century painting to the family of a Jewish Belgian art collector, after being taken from his home by the Nazis during the Second World War.
The work of 1654 of the painter Henry Gibbs, Aeneas and his family fleeing Burning Troy, was considered by the Nazis as “an act of racial persecution”, said that the Spoliation consulting panelwhich examines the cases of looted works.
The panel resolves the demands of people, or their heirs, who lost possession of cultural goods in Nazi times, which is now held in national collections in the United Kingdom.
The heirs and great-grandchildren of the art collector Samuel Hartveld will now receive work, which he left in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1940, while fleeing the country with his wife, said the British government.
The Minister of Arts, Sir Chris Bryant, praised the panel to “help to bring families together with their most precious property”, calling it “good decision”.
Painting, which is not currently displayed by the Tate, represents scenes from the Epic Latin poem by Virgil, The Aeneid, and would be a comment on the English civil war.
It was bought by the Tate collection of the Jan de Maere gallery in Brussels in 1994, after René Van Den Broeck bought the collection and house of Mr. Hartveld for a “derisory sum”, said the panel.
He survived the war but was never gathered with his collection of works of art, which many believed to be in galleries in Europe.
Last year, Sonia Klein Trust – established by the heirs of Mr. Hartveld – launched a complaint.
Now, in a new declaration, the administrators have declared that they were “deeply grateful” on the decision to return the work of art, a decision which recognizes “the terrible Nazi persecution of Samuel Hartveld”.
Tate director Maria Balshaw said that it was “a deep privilege to help bring this work together with her legitimate heirs” and that she was “delighted to see the spoliation process working successfully to get there”.
“Although the origin of the work was widely studied when it was acquired in 1994, crucial facts concerning the previous property of the table were not known.”
She continued by saying that she was looking forward to presenting the table to confidence in the coming months.
