#looted art

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Queen Mother Idia of Benin

Africa is a beautiful continent filled with sweeping landscapes and mighty rivers. Its history is filled with great kingdoms and large empires. Its...

James W Singer 11 May 2025

Museum Stories

How a Dutch Still Life Made Its Way Home After WWII

What happens to artworks and cultural treasures as a nation prepares for war? In the case of Jan van Huysum’s Vase of Flowers, the Dutch still...

Natalia Iacobelli 8 May 2025

Museum Stories

The Story of Hitler’s Unrealized Art Museum in Linz

The Hitler’s Museum – originally in German called Das Führermuseum, was luckily an unrealized art museum within a cultural complex planned by...

Zuzanna Stańska 8 May 2025

History

10 Most Important Masterpieces Lost During World War II

Art theft and looting occurred on a massive scale during World War II. It all started with Adolf Hitler’s unsuccessful career as an artist. He was...

Zuzanna Stańska 8 May 2025

Göring and Lohse studying a book on Rembrandt.Credit. Photo: Archives des Musées Nationaux History

Bruno Lohse—Art Dealer of the Third Reich

In 2007, the Zurich prosecutor’s office opened vault number 5 of the Zürcher Kantonalbank. But something felt off; the vault was huge, more like a...

Javier Abel Miguel 28 April 2025

WTF Art History

The Most Outrageous Stories Behind Damaged Artworks

A few years ago, two Chinese women drove their Mercedes SUV into the Forbidden City in Beijing. That event created quite a controversy. The least you...

Michel Rutten 21 April 2025

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (detail), 1904-07, oil, silver, and gold on canvas, Neue Galerie New York Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I is Gustav Klimt’s most significant work of portraiture. The famous Lady in Gold has as many eye-catching...

Emily Snow 11 December 2024

Review

Finding Hitler’s Horses: Book Review of Arthur Brand’s True Story

When the year has come to an end it’s always fun to look back at the books that inspired and impacted us. For me, easily the most fascinating...

Nadine Waldmann 2 December 2024

Museum Stories

Biggest Art Heists in History

Movies on thefts and art heists are making huge box office hits for their great action and wit. However, even if real art heists have been sometimes...

Irina Diana Calu 18 November 2024

Medieval Art

Celebrity Sculptors, Medieval Fraud and Nazi Looting – An Outrageous Story of the Golden Veit Stoss Altarpiece

This is the largest Gothic altarpiece in the world and a national treasure of Poland. Carved over a period of 12 years, the 15th century Veit Stoss...

Candy Bedworth 29 July 2024

Art of Australia & Oceania

Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Looted from Australia

At the end of the 18th century, the British Empire added Australia to its territory. Since the infamous arrival of Captain Cook white people have...

Jimena Escoto 20 June 2024

History

The Story of Raphael’s Lost Portrait of a Young Man

Have you ever seen this painting? It is currently missing; in fact, it has been missing since 1945. Let’s explore the story of one of the most...

Zuzanna Stańska 18 June 2024