Thursday, March 28th | 18 Adar II 5784

Subscribe
January 25, 2022 2:51 pm
0

Boston Museum Returns Painting Looted During World War II to Heirs of Former Jewish Owner

×

avatar by Shiryn Ghermezian

A partial view of the painting “View of Beverwijk” by Salomon van Ruysdael. Photo: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) has agreed to return a 17th century Dutch painting to the heirs of late Jewish collector Ferenc Chorin, who placed the artwork in a bank vault before fleeing Hungary during World War II, only to have the vault’s contents looted in 1945.

“View of Beverwijk” (1646) by Salomon van Ruysdael is currently on public display at Christie’s in New York, and was originally scheduled to be auctioned later this year.

The MFA acquired “View of Beverwijk” in 1982 from a London dealer “with no information about its history other than that it had come from a Swiss collection,” the museum said on Monday, adding that it was “not aware that the ‘View of Beverwijk’ had belonged to Chorin or was considered missing.” The museum also said that the work appeared in a 1988 publication about objects lost in Hungary during World War II, but the painting had been paired with the wrong image and description.

In 2019, art historian Sándor Juhász informed the MFA that the artwork once belonged to Hungarian hotelier Frigyes Glück, from whose estate Chorin purchased the painting. After the museum updated that detail about the painting’s provenance on its website, Chorin’s heirs were about to locate the painting in 2021, following a years-long search.

“We are pleased to have worked so quickly and amicably with the heirs of Ferenc Chorin to redress this historical loss,” MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum said in a statement. “The return of Ruysdael’s ‘View of Beverwijk’ underscores the importance of transparency and providing online access to our collection.”

Agnes Peresztegi, an attorney representing the Chorin family, said, “Historical justice entails not only restituting the works of art that have been stolen by the Nazis. In many cases the claimants have to struggle for years before obtaining justice. In this case, I would like to pay homage to the MFA for not only restituting the work to its rightful owners, but also doing it in an elegant, professional, swift and just manner.”

Peresztegi also told the Boston Globe that she approached the museum less than a year ago about the painting and that “this was a model restitution process. The quickest I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Chorin was a wealthy attorney, industrialist and banker in Hungary. He was a prominent member of Hungary’s National Association of Industrialists, funded anti-Nazi movements and papers, and financially supported Jews fleeing Nazi-controlled territories.

In March 1943, Chorin placed the Ruysdael painting — along with works by Alfred Sisley, Jean-François Millet, and Charles-François Daubigny — in a vault at the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest in an effort to keep them safe from Nazi forces. One year later, he and his family went into hiding when the Germans invaded Hungary.

After being discovered by the Nazis he was deported, but survived the war after trading information to the Nazis about business in Hungary in exchange for the lives of his extended family. Chorin was also forced to transfer his fortune to the Nazis and had the contents of his vault at the Hungarian Commercial Bank looted during the Siege of Budapest.

Chorin and his family later escaped to Portugal and eventually settled in New York in 1947. He died in 1964.

Chorin’s daughter, Daisy von Strasser, told the Globe following the painting’s restitution that her father would have been “elated to learn that some form of his former life had been found.”

“I do not think he would have made a lot of noise about it,” she added. “He would have looked at this painting and would have thought that regardless of what they may have lost in Hungary, they were the luckiest people in the world because they were all alive!”

Chorin’s heirs have already recovered one canvas by Sisley and another by the Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy that previously belonged to the family.

Share this Story: Share On Facebook Share On Twitter

Let your voice be heard!

Join the Algemeiner

Algemeiner.com

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.