ByTOBIAS SIEGAL
Updated:

Germany has returned a painting that was stolen by the Nazis to its rightful owners: The heirs of A. S. Drey, a notable Jewish art dealership. 

The Bavarian State Painting Collections, which manages art collections in museums throughout the German State of Bavaria, has restituted a ca. 1480 painting to the collective heirs of a prominent Jewish art dealer that owned a gallery in Munich during World World II.

The painting, which depicts St. Florian of Lorch, also known as the patron saint of Linz, Austria, was restituted to the heirs of A. S. Drey, a Jewish art dealership that operated in Munich, London and New York throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.



The painting, created on a wooden panel, is believed to have been created in a Bavarian workshop during the 15th century, though the artist behind it remains unknown. The painting was originally part of a medieval altarpiece collection, meaning that it was used to decorate the space above the altar in a Christian church. We know today that many altarpiece works of art from that era were not attributed to their creators, which may explain its unknown origins.  

The painting was seized by the Nazi regime in 1935, when the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts informed art dealers at the Munich National Art Gallery that the gallery was going to be dissolved and that they would need to pay extensive sums of money in taxes as a result, practically forcing them to concede paintings and pieces of art in their possession.

The A. S. Drey gallery included several partners, all of whom were of Jewish heritage: Siegfried Drey, Ludwig Stern, Friedrich Stern, Franz Drey and Paul Drey. Responding to an inquiry by The Jerusalem Post, head of Provenance Research of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Dr. Andrea Bambi, said the painting had been exhibited at the Burghausen gallery, one of 12 branch galleries in Bavaria, since 1974. It was stored for nearly 30 years prior to that.  After researching its origins, the painting was uploaded to www.lostart.de, a website that contains data on works of art and other items that were stolen, seized, relocated or stored by the Nazis during WWII.  The Bavarian State Painting Collections was then contacted by Attorney Imke Gielen who represents the heirs. "It was a process of nearly one year," Bambi noted. Bambi added that the Bavarian State Painting Collections' restitution efforts are based on the Washington Principles from 1998, which regulate the handling of art confiscated by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during WWII."We await about five more restitutions this year," Bambi told the Post. 

“We are grateful to the Bavarian State Painting Collections for carefully investigating the provenance of the painting and for establishing contact,” Gielen said.

“The restitution is also the result of the continuous, systematic research carried out by the Bavarian State Painting Collections on their holdings,” he added. 
“With the restitution of the Gothic wooden panel to the legal community of heirs, the great injustice that the Drey and Stern families had to suffer under the Nazis has been officially recognized and a step taken towards making amends," Bavarian State Minister of the Arts Bernd Sibler said in a statement. 
 
Sibler has played a major role in promoting the restitution of artwork and items stolen by the Nazi regime during World World II, including priceless paintings and ceremonial items.

Restitution von Naziraubgut an die Eigentümer. Wir stellen uns der historischen Verantwortung. Rechtsnachfolger sind aus Saarbrücken, Virginia und Taiwan angereist. Gerechtigkeit und Wunden heilen!

Posted by Bernd Sibler on Monday, 13 January 2020
 
In 2019, Sibler led the initiative of returning nine works of art to descendants of a Jewish couple, more than 80 years after Nazis stole the paintings, casts and engravings.Commenting on the biggest challenge of leading the effort of restituting artwork stolen during the Holocaust was finding the rightful heirs to the various works scattered across Germany. 
 
“Because of the Holocaust, there were no children, and then it was a question of who is entitled to inherit the art. These were difficult legal disputes," he said at the time.