Eight old master paintings that belonged to Dutch Jews before
the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in 1940 and later seized
from their German owner by the Communist government of East
Germany are being turned over to the Dutch government, Bloomberg
News reports. The paintings to be returned by the German
government include oils by the 17th-century painters Jan Steen
and Philips Wouwerman. Alfred Kummerle, the owner of a mill in
the German city of Brandenburg, acquired the paintings from the
Netherlands from 1940 to 1944. When he died in 1949 his wife
inherited his collection. She fled East Germany in 1953 and her
possessions were seized by the government. Thirty-two old
masters from Kummerle’s collection are in the Museum der
Bildenden Kunste in Leipzig. “Provenance research on the
remaining works has not yet been completed,” an e-mail from
Germany’s Federal Office for Central Services and Unresolved
Property Issues said, according to a report by Bloomberg News.
“This partial decision affects eight painting