Existing comment:
Nearly 70 years after the end of World War II, the art world still is reeling from the effects of Nazi looting of artworks and other cultural property. The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens is proud to announce the amicable resolution of a claim regarding the Nazi-era looting of Vanitas, purchased by the Cummer Museum in 1962. In 2012, The Cummer Museum received notice that the heir of noted Jewish art dealer, Jacques Goudstikker, regarding a claim to this painting. After extensive research, both parties are pleased to announce a settlement in the case, which will result in Vanitas remaining in Jacksonville.
In May 1940, Goudstikker, one of the foremost Old Master paintings dealers in the Netherlands, fled with his family by sea in advance of the Nazi invasion. Tragically, Goudstikker died in an accident on board ship, but his family reached safety, maintaining possession of an inventory log that noted most of the nearly 1,400 artworks he had left behind. Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, a leading member of the Nazi party, looted the Goudstikker gallery holdings within weeks of the family fleeing. Extensive documentation exists tracing Vanitas from Goudstikker's gallery, through Goring, to a sale at Lempertz Auktion in Cologne in 1941. However, there is no clear indication of what happened to the painting following the unsuccessful sale at Lempertz until it was purchased by The Cummer Museum from a New York gallery in 1962. The painting has been on near continuous display since that time, and was voted by Cummer Museum visitors as one of their "50 Favorites" in the Permanent Collection in 2011, as part of the Cummer Museum's 50th anniversary. |