UK museum to return painting looted by Nazis to Jewish art collector's heirs
The Tate
Britain gallery is set to reunite the great-grandchildren of a Belgian Jewish art collector with a painting looted from his home by the Nazis, officials said on Saturday.
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Aeneas and his Family Fleeing Burning Troy was stolen from the home of Samuel Hartveld after he fled Antwerp with his wife in May 1940.
The artwork by English painter Henry Gibbs was one of hundreds of thousands the Nazis plundered from Jewish families during World War II.
Their restitution has been a slow process, often involving legal battles and complex international searches.
The return of the 1654 oil painting will mark the latest triumph for a special panel set up by the UK government to investigate such works that have ended up in Britain's public collections.
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The Spoliation Advisory Panel ruled the Aeneas painting was 'looted as an act of racial persecution' and has arranged for it to be returned to Hartveld's heirs in the coming months, the UK government's culture department said.
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