UK’s Tate says it will return looted Constable painting to family of Hungarian collector
Posted Mar 27, 2014 12:08:46 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
LONDON – Britain’s Tate gallery says it will return a painting by John Constable that was stolen from its Hungarian owner by the Nazis during World War II.
The gallery said Thursday that the government’s advisory committee on contested artworks had recommended that “Beaching A Boat, Brighton 1824” be returned to claimants who wish to remain anonymous.
Tate said it accepted the ruling.
Britain’s Spoliation Advisory Panel said the oil painting had been owned by a Hungarian collector from a Jewish background who went into hiding in 1944. It said his property was confiscated, and the painting was likely “looted by the Germans in 1944 or early 1945.”
The committee said the gallery had a moral obligation to return the painting to the family of the man, who died in 1958.
