Tate returns painting looted by Nazis to collector's heirs

A 17th-century painting looted by Nazis from the home of a Jewish Belgian art collector is being returned to his family by Tate Britain.

- CHARLOTTE MCLAUGHLIN

The government’s Spoliation Advisory Panel recommended the return of Henry Gibbs’s 1654 work, Aeneas And His Family Fleeing Burning Troy, from Tate Britain to the heirs of Samuel Hartveld.

The panel, which investigates claims for Nazi-looted art in UK public collections, decided the painting was “looted as an act of racial persecution”.

Hartveld left the painting behind when he and his wife fled Antwerp in May 1940 to escape the German occupation.

Although Hartveld survived the war, he never recovered his art collection. The Nazis seized 66 paintings from his gallery on 26 March 1942 and many of the artworks are thought to be dispersed among European galleries.

The painting’s return marks a significant victory for Hartveld’s great-grandchildren, who are now set to receive their ancestor’s lost artwork.

The Gibbs painting was bought from the art gallery Galerie Jan de Maere in Brussels in 1994 by the Tate after René van den Broeck purchased Mr Hartveld’s collection and home for a “paltry sum”, the panel said.

In May 2024, the Sonia Klein Trust, established by Mr Hartveld’s heirs, launched a claim.