A painting from the famous collection of Dutch art dealer Jacques Goodsticker, looted by the Nazis during World War II, has been identified more than eight decades after it disappeared. The most unusual thing about this case is that the work was not found in a private collection or museum, but among discarded items on an Amsterdam street.
Dutch art detective Arthur Brandt reported that the painting was found years ago by city resident Robert van der Hook. He spotted it among a pile of abandoned objects, picked it up, and then stored it in his basement, unaware that he was probably holding a work with an extremely complex and important history.
The work is a diptych of the interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, the New Church in Amsterdam, and according to preliminary attribution is probably the work of the Dutch artist Hendrik van der Burg. After researching its provenance, Brandt established a connection with the Jacques Goodsticker collection, one of the most famous art collections affected by the Nazi looting of art.
Goodsticker was among the most influential Dutch dealers of old masters during the period between the two world wars. As a Jew, he was forced to leave the Netherlands after the German invasion in May 1940. He fled with his family to Britain, but died just days later in an accident on board a ship.
His vast collection, comprising at least 1,113 catalogued works, remained in Amsterdam. After his escape, his business and a significant part of his artistic assets came under German control.
Many of the most valuable paintings were acquired by Hermann Göring, one of the leading figures in the Nazi regime and a renowned collector of looted European art.Other works and assets passed into the hands of the German banker and merchant Alois Middl.
After the end of the war, part of the collection was discovered in Germany and returned to the Netherlands, but the question of ownership remained unresolved for decades. It was not until 2006 that the Dutch government decided to return 202 paintings from the national collection to the heirs of Goodsticker.
The decision became one of the most significant European cases of restitution of works taken from Jewish owners during the Nazi regime. However, the process did not end there. Individual works from the former collection continue to be searched for and identified in museums, private collections and on the art market. This is why the discovery of the painting in Amsterdam is particularly curious. Instead of surfacing after an auction or a specialized study of a museum collection, it was literally saved from the trash.
After van der Hook contacted Arthur Brand, he began to check the history and origin of the work. Comparison with the Goodsticker archives allowed the connection to the lost collection to be established. Brand announced that the work would be returned to its rightful heirs.
For provenance and restitution specialists, the discovery is yet another reminder that some of the art that disappeared during the war years is likely still outside museum catalogs and official registers. Some works may be in private homes, attics and warehouses, while others, as the case in Amsterdam shows, can even be found among items destined for disposal.