Summary
This Paper, ‘Report
of the Spoliation Advisory Panel in Respect of the Three Rubens Paintings held
by the Courtauld Institute of Art’ (HC 63), examines and resolves a Nazi
spoliation claim regarding three Rubens oil sketches.
The
Spoliation Advisory Panel, an agency of the Department for Culture, Media and
Sport, resolves claims from people, or their heirs, who lost property during
the Nazi era which is now held in UK national collections. In 2006 the Trustees
of the Samuel Courtauld Trust received a claim from Ms Christine Koenigs, the
granddaughter of the late Franz W. Koenigs of the Netherlands, in respect of
three oil sketches by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).
The paintings
in question are:
- 'St. Gregory the Great with Ss. Maurus and
Papianus and St. Domitilla with Ss. Nereus and Achilleus' (1606-1607)
- 'The Conversion of St. Paul' (c.1610-1612)
- 'The Bounty of James I
Triumphing Over Avarice', for the ceiling in the Banqueting House, Whitehall
(c.1632-1633).
The claimant contended that the family lost
possession in 1940 when the paintings, which had been loaned to a Museum and
had been used as collateral to secure a loan from a bank, were called in when
the bank went into liquidation. The paintings were sold to a collector, Count
Antione Seilern, who subsequently bequeathed them to the the Home House Society
(the predecessor of the Samuel Courtauld Trust) in 1978. The claimant submitted
that the paintings were undervalued when sold, as a result of a conspiracy by
two persons connected with the museum, and that the sale must have been made
under duress.
The Spoliation Advisory Panel considered the submissions
and evidence submitted by both the claimant and the Courtauld in order to
establish whether Koenigs was deprived of these paintings as a result of Nazi
spoliation and, if so, to assess the moral strength of the claimant's case and
whether any moral obligation rests on the Courtauld. The Panel concludes that
the family were deprived of the paintings neither by theft, nor by forced sale
or by sale at an undervalue. The Panel recommends that the claim be rejected.
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