Five Old Master Paintings Stolen 40 Years Ago in a Notorious Art Heist Have Been Recovered Thanks to a German Mayor’s Ingenious Plan

When the mayor of a small German city was shown a photograph
last year of a painting hanging on a living room wall, he
recognized the work immediately. It was one of five Old Master
paintings stolen from the Friedenstein Palace in Gotha nearly 40
years ago in an audacious theft that East Germany’s feared police
failed to solve.

Now, the treasures stolen in what some consider to be Germany’s
equivalent of the Isabella Stewart Gardner theft have been returned
safe and sound.

Mayor Knut Kreuch negotiated through intermediaries acting on
behalf of anonymous sellers who were initially demanding millions
of euros for the works. In what has been described as a
“masterstroke,” the objects were quietly returned last September,
arriving in Berlin by van, and no ransom was paid. (Further
specifics of the recovery have yet to be divulged publicly.)

Last week, the five paintings were unveiled and the operation to
recover them, revealed. This week, they go on view at the
Friedenstein Palace from which they were stolen in 1979.

The long-lost paintings include a portrait by Frans Hals, a
painting by Hans Holbein the Elder, a work once thought to be
by Jan Lievens, and a landscape from the workshop of Jan Brueghel
the Elder. The fifth painting is a copy by an unknown artist
of a Van Dyck self-portrait. All the paintings date from the
mid-16th century to the 17th century. The Art
Newspaper reports their value to be around €4 million ($4.4
million).

It is unclear if the authorities are unwilling or rather unable
to say who they suspect stole the paintings, beyond the fact that
they are German residents. It is believed the works were smuggled
into West Germany in the 1980s, and so passed through the Iron
Curtain.

The so-called Gotha robbery was the largest single art heist
ever to take place in the former German Democratic
Republic. The country was left stunned when the works
disappeared early in the morning of December 14, 1979. Police
were unable to recover the paintings despite interrogating more
than 1,000 people, including the palace’s employees, and their
families.

Since their return in September, the paintings have been
authenticated by experts at Berlin State Museums’ Rathgen Research
Laboratory as the ones stolen from the castle.

Bodo Ramelow, the minister president of the Free State of
Thuringia, said the paintings’ return filled “a painful gap in the
historic building,” referring to the early Baroque palace, which
dates to the 17th century.

The Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation provided around €50,000
($55,000) toward the costs of lawyers and logistics. Its general
secretary, Martin Hoernes, stressed: “No money goes to thieves. You
don’t do that,” the Sueddeutsches
Zeitung reports. The lawyer’s clients
initially demanded €5.25 million ($5.8 million), according to the
newspaper Der Spiegel.

The post Five Old Master Paintings Stolen 40 Years Ago in a
Notorious Art Heist Have Been Recovered Thanks to a German Mayor’s
Ingenious Plan appeared first on artnet News.