Post 5

Museum returns painting found to be Nazi loot
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27453827/

In 1961 the Minneapolis Institute of Art bought a painting called “Smoke Over Rooftops” painted in 1911 by Fernand Ledger. In 1977 the museum got a letter claiming that the painting really belonged to Alphonse Kann a Parisian art collector that died in 1948. The museum had to go through many files to find out if the painting had really once belonged to him. Investigators found out that after Kann fled to Paris after the war the Nazis took away most of his collection. They took so much that their inventory of it was 60 typed pages long. After the Nazis took it Galerie Leiris, a Paris art dealer, bought the painting at an auction in 1942 and then sold it to Buchholz Gallery. In 1951 Putnam Dana McMillan bought the painting in New York and gave it to the Art Institute in 1961. Once the museum found out the now 2.8 million dollar painting for sure belonged to Kann the returned it to Paris. Stuff like this has happened a lot between 1998 and 2006. The Association of Art Museum Directors says the 22 pieces have been identified as stolen by the Nazis and each one has either been returned or the owner and the museum have reached an agreement.