Paintings Stolen by Nazis Recovered at Ohio Auction House
Two 17th-century paintings looted by Nazis during World War II resurfaced at an Ohio auction house, shedding new light on the fate of the famed Schloss collection.
The search for lost artwork looted by the Nazis during World War II has taken experts all over the world. The most recent place is Newark, Ohio, where two 17th-century paintings turned up at a family-run Apple Tree Auction Center auction. Following a tip, Robert Edsel, founder of the Monuments Men and Women Foundation, identified the paintings as part of the lost collection of Adolphe and Lucie Haas Schloss, a Jewish couple who lived in Paris.
The oil-on-copper still lifes of flower bouquets are attributed to Dutch painter Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573—1621). They were spotted in the online listing for an auction scheduled to close on September 12. After Edsel identified them, they were removed from the listing.
The Columbus Dispatch broke the news on September 11. According to their story, the paintings are valued at about $1 million each.
Adolphe Schloss (1842-1910) was one of the most prominent collectors of Old Masters paintings in Europe from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. He focused largely on Dutch and Flemish artists. After his death, his widow, Lucie, inherited the collection, which consisted of 333 paintings. Lucie died in 1938, leaving the paintings to their children.
During World War II, the Schloss family worried about their safety and that of their valuable paintings. In 1939, they transferred the paintings to the Banque Jordaan. In 1940, when Nazi forces occupied France, raids were conducted on Jewish art dealers and collectors. Nazi officials spent years searching for the Schloss collection and seized it in 1943. The paintings and many other stolen works were stored at the Führerbau administrative office in Munich, Germany. Civilians raided the building in 1945 and stole many of the paintings, including 262 from the Schloss collection.
Nearly 100 stolen paintings from the Schloss collection were recovered by 1951. The remaining lost paintings made the collection one of the most famous examples of art looted by the Nazis. In 2020, the newly founded Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP), a database of cultural artifacts stolen during World War II, made The Fate of the Adolphe Schloss Collection its pilot project.
Apple Tree Auction Center obtained the two paintings from an abandoned safe-deposit box in Texas. Their previous owner has not been identified. If the paintings are confirmed to be the works from the Schloss collection, they will be returned to the family’s heirs.
In August, another painting stolen by the Nazis caught international attention when experts spotted a photo of it in a real estate listing in Argentina. The painting, Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by 17th-18th century artist Giuseppe Ghislandi, was looted from Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker in 1940 and sold to a Nazi official. According to Artnet News, the couple in possession of the painting were put under house arrest and charged.
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