The British government announced on Saturday that a 17th-century painting, stolen by the Nazis in 1940 from a Jewish art collector in Belgium, will be returned to the collector’s descendants after being held in a London gallery for thirty years.
Samuel Hartveld and his wife fled Nazi persecution in Antwerp, leaving behind their possessions, including the oil-on-canvas artwork “Aeneas and his Family Fleeing Burning Troy”. Following a thorough review by a British advisory body investigating Nazi theft claims, the government decided to return the painting to Hartveld’s heirs and great-grandchildren.
The painting, created in 1654 by English artist Henry Gibbs, depicts the mythological tale of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, fleeing Troy with his family after the Greek invasion facilitated by the Trojan Horse. Acquired by London’s Tate Britain gallery in 1994, the painting will be repatriated following approval by the independent Spoliation Advisory Panel, which initiated a review last May.
Established in 2000, the 10-member panel evaluates claims of lost cultural property during the Nazi era currently found in British public collections. Citing the looting of Hartveld’s property, library, and paintings as an act of racial persecution, the panel recommended the return of the artwork based on legal and moral grounds.
A 2009 law permits British institutions to return objects linked to the Holocaust and the Nazi era upon agreement by the arts minister and the advisory panel’s recommendation. Nevertheless, other laws prevent major British museums from permanently returning objects, many of which have been subject to foreign repatriation requests due to claims of looting or forced acquisition during British colonial rule.
