London – Masterpiece Looted by Nazi’s was Found and Stopped from Going to Auction

London – A 17th century masterpiece was stopped from going under the hammer at an auction house after it was revealed that the artwork had been looted by the Nazis more than 65 years back.

The polish embassy in London disclosed that Pieter de Grebber`s painting, titled study of a reading man, belonged to Abe Gutnajer, an antiques dealer murdered in Warsaw in 1942 by the nazis, who confiscated his property.

“After the auction was stopped, the polish foreign service found the heirs of the legitimate owners in the USA and opened negotiations with Christie`s and the consignor of the painting to determine the future of the work. “After long negotiations, a fair and just solution was reached, without the need of resorting to costly litigation,” a spokeswoman for the polish said.

The painting, will soon be returned to the family of Gutnajer.
Gutnajer came from a well-known Warsaw family who, since the 1890s, had traded in antiques. In 1915, he set up in business selling paintings, including works by Dutch and Flemish artists of the 17th to 19th centuries. After the Germans occupied Warsaw, the city`s Jews were kept in a ghetto until sent to death camps.
Little is known of Gutnajer`s life in the ghetto except that he was extremely ill and in 1942 he was murdered along with the rest of his family and a polish doctor who had come to treat him. The only member of the family to survive was his son, Ludwik, who moved to America, where his wife and two children still live.