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The War Over Plunder: Who Owns Art Stolen in War?By Colin Woodard | MHQ | Single Page | 18 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post  Allied troops in 1945 discovered art looted by the Nazis and stored in a salt mine near the German village of Merkers. Among the paintings:?Manet's In the Winter Garden (Photo: National Archives).
From the Summer 2010 issue of MHQ Returning plunder to its rightful owner may sound straightforward, but in practice it is extremely difficult, particularly for objects seized in the distant past. Who the 'rightful' owner is seems to depend largely on your point of view The Swedes came at night, rushing through a gap in the walls protecting the Mala Strana neighborhood at the foot of Prague Castle. By the break of day on July 27, 1648, the invaders had captured the entire western side of the city, including the castle, with its famous collections of art, rare books, and astronomical instruments. Over the coming weeks, the Swedes tried several times to cross the Charles Bridge to seize the Old Town on the opposite bank of the Vltava River, but were repelled by a ragtag force of townspeople and Jesuit priests. Despite receiving reinforcements, the Swedes were stuck on their side of the river in November when news of the Peace of Westphalia reached the city. The Thirty Years War, one of the bloodiest conflicts in European history, had finally come to a close, ending Sweden's campaign against the Holy Roman Empire. N The Swedish army had been denied control of the commercial side of town but had achieved its main objective: the capture of the renowned trove of art, treasure, and curiosities collected in Prague Castle by the late Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II. For decades prior to his death in 1612, Rudolf had directed a small army of agents to scour the known world for unusual objects. There were paintings by Albrecht Dürer and Pieter Brueghel, jewels, precious stones, and ancient coins from Italy, the Balkans, and the Middle East, exquisite clocks from the four corners of Europe, and statues in stone and bronze. There was a horn allegedly taken from a unicorn, the jawbone of one of the Sirens who tempted Ulysses, and even a pair of iron nails supposedly salvaged from Noah's ark. Rudolf had commissioned a greenhouse in which his staff maintained a collection of exotic plants and a menagerie where they tended unusual beasts, including a live lion. His paintings alone took up seven halls of Prague's sprawling castle complex. But perhaps the most wondrous of Rudolf's many treasures was a book of enormous value and antiquity: the Codex Argenteus, better known today as the Silver Bible. The book—in which the four gospels of St. Mark were transcribed in gold and (especially) silver ink—had been created in the sixth century, probably for Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths, not many years before his nation was conquered by Justinian during the Gothic War of 535–554. For a thousand years its movements were lost to history, passed from owner to owner between its jewel-encrusted covers. At some point one of its vellum leaves was torn out and hidden with the relics of a saint within the walls of a church in the southwestern German town of Speyer. The remaining 187 leaves came into the hands of Benedictine monks cloistered on the outskirts of Essen in western Germany, where Rudolf's agents somehow acquired them in the late 1500s. By the time the Silver Bible reached Prague, the book was so old that the language in which it was written had been forgotten. Today, in fact, its pages represent nearly half of all surviving examples of the Gothic language. Without it, scholars might never have been able to reconstruct that ancient language, a cousin to Old Norse, Old High German, and Old English. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: Art, Foreign Affairs, MHQ, Monuments Men, World War II
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18 Comments to “The War Over Plunder: Who Owns Art Stolen in War?”
"After the collapse of communism, Czech president Vaclav Havel tried to persuade Sweden to return the Silver Bible and several other objects taken from Bohemia during the Thirty Years War. He was refused, leaving the Czechs despondent."
No he didn't. It is just an internet rumour that Havel asked for this. Havel is a sensible person and do not condone absurdities. Uppsala University cannot give it back to the Czech Republic for semantic reasons if for no other reasons. The Czech republic has never owned it. Theoretically, Uppsala University could give it back to:
1. The Descendant's of Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie who donated it to Uppsala university.
2. The descendants of Isaac Vossius who sold it to de la Gardie.
3. The descendants of Queen Christina who gave it to Vossius.
4. The Habsburg family from whom Christina's soldiers plundered it
5. Someone who can claim to be the legal heir to the Monastery from whom the Habsburg family took it (using unknown means but presumably the monastary was not happy to part with it). As far as I know, no such person or legal entity exists.
6. Someone who could claim to be a descendent of the craftsmen i Ravenna who are presumed to have created it in the first place.
7. Someone who could claim to be a descendent of King Theoderik who is supposed to have commissioned and paid for it.
None of these have asked for it as far as I know.
If there was a Gothic people and a Gothic nation, for whom this would be an extremely important cultural artifact they would definitely have a strong moral claim to the Codex ("it means much more to us than it means to you, please give it to us"). However, no such people or nation exists.
Legally it clearly belongs to Uppsala University. Morally, Uppsala University probably have the strongest claim to it. They have received it as a donation from a man who bought it legally from a man who got it as a donation. They have taken good care of it for three centuries. If that is not enough to qualify for ownership, what is?
Sensemaker
By Sensemaker on May 3, 2010 at 8:53 am
Despite losing the Napoleonic Wars, France managed to retain many stolen works, particularly from small German and Italian city-states. These small countries were weakly represented at the peace conferences, and ex-Empress Josephine charmed the Russian emperor. Paris museums are full of such paintings.
By Richard Stevens on Aug 13, 2010 at 3:56 am
Minnesota has the battle flag of the 28th Virginia regiment captured by the First Minnesota regiment during the battle of Gettysburg.
Virginia wants it back; Minnesota says "No!"
28th Virginia Battle Flag
By Ray Marshall on Aug 13, 2010 at 8:54 am
I had seen statue of Dinosaur which was stolen or presented by Mussolini to Hitler was bring back after second world war and presented in museum of Rome.I understand it is very difficult to search real owner of art,.In vatican museum there are many valuable art of Egypt which was stolen ed by Roman but how can anybody find out true owner of that art?
By Ramesh Raghuvanshi on Aug 13, 2010 at 12:26 pm
It is worth noting that, as I reported in The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum (University of Chicago Press, 2009), archaeological leaders wrote to the Pentagon warning them that the museum might be attacked by looters and claiming, wrongly, that the 1954 Hague Conventions required the military to secure the museum from non-military looters. The Pentagon's lawyers wrote back blandly assuring the archaeologists that the US military did observe the 1954 Hague Conventions as a matter of customary international law — without noting that this would not require them to protect the museum.
A much more serious case could be made that the US has violated those sections of the Conventions that require occupying powers to secure and protect cultural sites, since the archaeological sites in Iraq were given almost no protection by coalition forces and as a result were massively looted between 2003 and 2006.
By Lawrence Rothfield on Aug 14, 2010 at 10:35 pm
And what of the Elgin Marbles, which, though not actual booty from a war arrived in London as the result of a conquest of Breece by turkey, in which Britain was not involved. It is reprehensible that the Brits will not return them to the owners, whose provenance is quite clear: The people of Athens.
By Fred on Aug 15, 2010 at 3:36 pm
This article brings to light wars dirty little secret. America, as other country's is just as guilty. I think that ant stolen artifact, should be returned to the government of the country it was stolen from. With the provision, that all articles in this exchange will remain the property of the people of that country, and not sold to private buyers. If at some point, ownership can be established, then the article can be returned to the family.
By Gary Summer on Aug 16, 2010 at 8:57 am
It would be nice to see a serious article on the Holocaust Loot stored at the Library of Congress. I retired from the Library in 2009, but was at the center of the discovery by Cinton's Presidential Commission regarding this loot. I had seen the paperwork on this loot and was the contact when the DoJ and Commission sent their historians. I gave both of them copies of the documents and told them where it was. Many have the Offenbach Depot stamp on them. I watched as politics, corruption and cronyism took over. The current Librarian, James Billington, was friends with the Commission head Stuart Eizenstat(read my review at Amazon of his book). What the Library took and what happened is worth its own book. I am easy to find if anybody wants to try.
By David Moore on Aug 16, 2010 at 9:39 am
Left out in the article is the Vatican, I suspect being the greatest respoitory of stolen art throughout history. Then there are the Swiss vaults and the British Museum. Secretary Rumsfeld's inaction and comments are an insult to any man of honor.
By Dan on Aug 16, 2010 at 11:28 am
An interesting article. But a reasonable alternative could be that these artifacts are not cultural to a specific government, ethnicity, or geographic area but contribute to the human race's cultural identity. If so, an argument could be made that these artifacts should be held in places such as New York, London, Paris, or Tokyo (the victors of these wars) because more people would have access to them. It is not really a bad thing to have these artworks in more accessible locations. As travel becomes easier and cheaper it may make sense to return them to the geographic area, but in the end does it really matter now?
By Steve Tucker on Aug 30, 2010 at 2:32 pm