WWII, art and AMAM

During World War II, German art collections were ravaged by looting and plundering. Important art works were stolen by unscrupulous soldiers and opportunists and then sold to dealers.

According to an Aug. 1 Boston Globe article by reporter Walter Robinson, two of those paintings- "Merry Company," by Jan Steen, and "Allegory of Poverty," by Adriaen van de Venne-found their way into the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) collection.

"When I read the article, I was 19 times of huffy," said Marjorie E. Wieseman, the museum's acting director. "The reporter quoted me out of context."

"The article is misleading in a number of ways," Wieseman said. "No, for the nineteenth time it's not stolen art."

"Museums want to obtain great paintings," Robinson said. "They often don't look very closely at where they came from."

The origin of the paintings in question is obscure. The paintings once hung in a museum in Gotha, Germany. The ducal family that founded the museum began to dispute the ownership of the art in its collection, and many paintings were moved during the 1920's and 30's. AMAM purchased the paintings from an art dealer in the Netherlands in the 1950s. The dealer assured AMAM that the paintings had a clean history.

In 1965, a joint East and West German catalog was issued listing the works missing from the Weimar Republic. Both paintings in the AMAM collection were cited.

"The documents I received are pretty clear that these paintings were stolen," said Robinson.

Wieseman said that many of the artworks which were initially reported as missing were not necessarily stolen. "Now we have more accurate information," she said. "Maybe they were just temporarily stolen."

According to Wieseman, many aristocrats, finding they needed money, quietly sold art to dealers. "Many, many times, for most upright reasons, people want transactions to be handled discreetly," Wieseman said. "There's nothing underhanded or illegal about it."

"Many records were destroyed during the war," said Wieseman. "Standard museum guidelines are that if an object can be proven to be illegally acquired, then we are morally and ethically obliged to return art to its rightful owner."

Robinson said Germany has not yet been in a position to sue for the retrieval of stolen art. "Gotha is a very interesting town," he said. "They have art treasures, but they can't pave their streets. The Germans knew where the artworks were but they didn't pursue them since they don't have the resources."

Weiseman said she has spoken with the curator of the Gotha museum. "He was satisfied that we were the rightful owner of the paintings," Weiseman said. "All parties are satisfied."

Student senator sophomore Aaron Slodounik said he is personally researching the history of the paintings. Slodounik said he might bring up the issue for discussion at a Senate meeting. The paintings were debated at Tuesday's Hillel meeting. "The general feelings were pretty mixed," Slodounik said. "Nothing was decided."

"The question is a moral one," Robinson said. "Do art institutes have a right to steal things?"