2 days ago
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A 17th-century painting by Henry Gibbs that was looted by the Nazis and has been in the Tate collection in the UK for the past 31 years is to be returned to the descendants of a Jewish art collector.
Aeneas and his Family Fleeing Burning Troy was stolen by the Nazis from a gallery in Antwerp, Belgium, after its owner, Samuel Hartveld, was forced to flee in May 1940, eight months after the start of the second world war.
It will be returned to Hartveld’s great-grandchildren after a decision by the Spoliation Advisory Panel, which considers claims regarding Nazi-looted artworks now in a UK public collection.
The 1654 painting depicts scenes from The Aeneid, a poem telling the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. The painting shows Aeneas trying to rescue his family from the burning city.
Chris Bryant, the arts minister, said the return of the painting was the “perfect example” of what the panel was intended to do – “helping to reunite families with their most treasured possessions that were looted by the Nazis”.
Since the independent panel was established by the government in 2000 it has received 23 claims, with 14 works returned to the heirs of their former owners.
When Hartveld, a successful art dealer, and his wife, Clara Meiboom, fled Antwerp for New York, they were forced to leave behind treasured possessions. The Henry Gibbs painting was one of 66 in his flourishing gallery in the city.
The couple’s son, Adelin Hartveld, remained in Belgium and joined the resistance. He was caught and later executed by the Nazis.
Hartveld and his wife survived the war, but the collector was never reunited with his paintings. Most were looted and sold by the German authorities, and some are now believed to be in galleries across Europe after changing hands several times.
The Henry Gibbs painting was bought by the Tate collection from Galerie Jan de Maere in Brussels.
Two of Hartveld’s three great-grandchildren submitted a claim for restitution in May 2024 via a trust set up in the name of their mother, Sonia Klein.
The panel’s report said: “The legal and moral claims to restitution of this painting by the great-grandchildren and heirs of Samuel Hartveld, who was forced to flee his homeland, leaving behind his property, books and art collection, are obvious. The property, library and the paintings in his gallery were looted as an act of racial persecution.”
The panel said Tate had not disputed the claim, and its response had been “open and honourable”.
Maria Balshaw, Tate’s director, said: “It is a profound privilege to help reunite this work with its rightful heirs … Although the artwork’s provenance was extensively investigated when it was acquired in 1994, crucial facts concerning previous ownership of the painting were not known.”
The trustees of the Sonia Klein Trust said: “This decision clearly acknowledges the awful Nazi persecution of Samuel Hartveld and that the ‘clearly looted’ painting belonged to Mr Hartveld, a Jewish Belgian art collector and dealer.”
