YAHOO NEWS scooped the story 4 hours ago!
I am writing this at 7PM on June 24, 2015
The painting was auctioned at Sotheby's London today
and it was expected to sell for–at most–$800,000.
It "fetched" ₤1.865 million ($2.92 million).
But the story began in 1939,
when the painting in this image
was stolen by the Nazis
and the theft was witnessed
by the thirteen year-old
nephew of its rightful owner.
The painting did not re-surface
until two years ago when it was found–along with
twelve hundred other pieces of art–in a Munich
apartment occupied by the son of Hildebrandt Gurlitt
who was handpicked by Hermann Goering to supervise
art looted from Jews in Germany and elsewhere.
Only two pieces of the "Gurlitt trove" have been
returned to their rightful heirs.
The painting in the image is one of them.
Max Liebermann's Two Riders On The Beach
is the first one to be put up for auction.
David Toren, the rightful heir to the painting–
and eye-witness to its theft–is now blind.
Click here for a 2014 interview with Mr. Toren.
The next Gurlitt page is there.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Oliverioscoop
ReplyDeleteFrom this morning's Wall Street Journal:
DeleteSix bidders tussled for the 1901 equestrian beach scene,
which sold for $2.95 million, over five times its low estimate.
“I’m blind so I can’t see it, but getting it back
was the principle of the thing,”
heir David Toren said before the sale.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10007111583511843695404581069570952058778