Recommendation regarding Van Praag

The Minister of Education, Culture and Science (hereinafter referred to as the Minister) asked the Restitutions Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) to issue advice and supplementary advice on 8 June and 12 July 2021 respectively. This advice concerns the application – after amendment of the initial application – for restitution of a painting in the Nederlands Kunstbezit [Netherlands Art Property] Collection (hereinafter also referred to as the NK Collection).

The restitution application was submitted by AA on behalf of BB, CC and DD (hereinafter also referred to as the Applicants). The Applicants have stated they are heirs of Meijer Marcus van Praag (16 May 1871 – 14 May 1943), of his brother Sadok Marcus van Praag (14 September 1880 – 19 June 1942) and his wife Lena van Praag-Zadick (16 May 1891 – 23 July 1943). The Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed [Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency] (hereinafter also referred to as the RCE) represented the Minister in this case.

The initial application concerned the following paintings:

• RMT 1608 – De ontdekte schijndeugd: de geveinsde droefheid van Geertruy [The Discovered Apparent Virtue: Geertruy’s Feigned Sadness] (1734 or 1745) by Cornelis Troost. The painting is currently in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede.
• NK 1777 – De ontdekte schijndeugd: de ontdekking van Volkert in de mand [The Discovered False Virtue: The Discovery of Volkert in the Basket] (1734 or 1735) by Cornelis Troost. The painting is currently in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede.
• NK 3533 – Vechtende kaartspelers. [Fighting Card Players.] The painting, by an unknown artist, is currently in the CollectieCentrum Nederland [Dutch National Collection Centre] in Amersfoort (the RCE’s depot).

In a letter of 3 November 2023, the Applicants advised the Committee that they wanted to withdraw the restitution application with regard to the paintings NK 1777 and RMT 1608; they maintained the application for painting NK 3533 (hereinafter referred to as the Painting). The Committee passed this letter onto the RCE. In response, the RCE asked the Committee in a letter of 27 November 2023 to amend the State Secretary’s request for advice and to issue advice solely in regard to the Painting.

The Procedure and the Applicable Assessment Framework

The Committee told the Applicants in a letter of 20 July 2021 about the request for advice from the Minister and explained the Committee’s procedure and regulations. The Committee took note of all the documents submitted by the Applicants and the RCE. It sent copies of all documents to the Applicants and the RCE. The Committee furthermore asked the Restitution of Items of Cultural Value and the Second World War Expert Centre of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (hereinafter also referred to as the ECR) to launch an investigation into the facts. The findings of the investigation were recorded in the investigation report referred to below.

Chronological overview of the committee’s actions and the responses to them

• In letters of 23 April 2021, 10 June 2021 and 24 June 2021 the Applicants asked the Minister to restitute three paintings, which are currently in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede and the Dutch National Collection Centre in Amersfoort. On 8 June and 12 July 2021, the RCE, on behalf of the Minister, asked the Committee to advise about this request.
• On 20 July 2021 the Committee asked the ECR to launch an investigation into the facts. On 2 August 2021 the Committee sent the ECR subsequent correspondence and photographs. On 18 November 2021 the Applicants sent the findings of their own research to the RCE and the ECR with a copy to the Committee.
• The ECR recorded the results of their research in a draft investigation report, which was sent with a letter dated 28 March 2023 to the RCE and the Applicants for additional information and/or comments. The RCE responded to it on 30 April 2023 and there were responses to the draft report on behalf of the Applicants on 1 and 19 June 2023. On 23 June 2023 the ECR sent the Committee an amended version of the draft investigation report together with the responses of the RCE and the Applicants.
• The Committee discussed the draft investigation report with the ECR during the meeting of 17 July 2023. After the meeting, section 3.5 was edited in its entirety and an extra literature reference was added to it.
• The final investigation report was approved on 25 August 2023, and on 5 September 2023 it was sent to the RCE and the Applicants. Responses were sent on behalf of the Applicants on 25 September and 20 October 2023. The RCE stated on 29 September 2023 that it did not have any comments of a factual nature on the final investigation report.
• On 5 September 2023 the Committee also invited the Applicants and the RCE to a hearing. It announced that during this hearing it would ask the Applicants questions about the succession of the estate of Sadok Marcus van Praag. The Applicants accepted the invitation on 25 September 2023. The RCE did so on 9 October 2023.
• The hearing took place on 23 October 2023 at the CAOP in The Hague. On 3 November 2023 minutes of the hearing were sent to the Applicants and the RCE for information. At the same time the Committee commented that it would proceed with preparation of its draft advice.
• On 3 November 2023 the Applicants also told the Committee that it was withdrawing the restitution application for the paintings NK 1777 and RMT 1608 on legal, ethical and moral grounds. They maintained the application for restitution of the Painting. At the same time, they asked the Committee, in the event that it concluded that the paintings NK 1777 and RMT 1608 by Cornelis Troost were the lawful property of Sadok Marcus van Praag and were sold under duress or were stolen, to ensure that these artworks ended up with the right branches of Sadok Marcus van Praag’s family.
• On 8 November 2023, after it had appraised the position of the Applicants in a supplementary response, the ECR sent an addendum to the investigation report. The addendum was added to the final investigation report.
• On 27 November 2023 the State Secretary asked the Committee to amend the request for advice on the basis of the Applicants’ letter of 3 November 2023, and requested the Committee to advise solely with regard to the painting NK 3533.
• The Committee sent its draft advice to the Applicants and the RCE on 22 December 2023.
• The Applicants responded to the draft advice in a letter and e-mails of 4 January 2024. The RCE responded on 15 January 2024 by making a number of changes to the text of the draft advice.

The assets of Meijer Marcus van Praag  

On 22 February 1946 Joseph Moses was appointed by the Nederlands Beheersinstituut [Netherlands Property Administration Institute] (hereinafter referred to as the NBI) as administrator for his absent sister Aaltje van Praag-Moses. Research has revealed that on 2 November 1949, the NBI representative for South Limburg wrote a letter to Joseph Moses from which it emerges that he was appointed at the time as administrator for both absent spouses, Meijer and Aaltje. The administration ended on 15 December 1949 because of zero assets. Joseph Moses was released from his role as administrator shortly thereafter. No documentation was found in the NBI archive about any separate appointment of Joseph Moses as administrator for Meijer.

Liquidation of the antiques shop  

The final curtain came down on Sadok’s shop at Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 37 as a result of Regulation 48/1941 promulgated by the occupying forces on 12 March 1941 concerning ‘the removal of Jews from the business community’. A letter in Sadok’s NBI file reveals that the business was closed and sealed 5 November 1941 and that one ‘F. Heubüt’ was appointed as Treuhänder [trustee]. On that same day the Diamond Exchange branch of the Incassobank N.V. surrendered five depositary receipts for Shell Union Oil Corporation shares at the Sarphatistraat branch of the Liro Bank. According to post-war correspondence, the Incassobank did this on the instructions of and at the expense of Sadok.

The business’s file in the Commercial Register, on the other hand, contains a declaration dated 2 March 1943 stating that the Omnia Treuhandgesellschaft m.b.H. in Arnhem was appointed administrator of Sadok’s enterprise with effect from 7 September 1942. According to a second declaration in the Commercial Register dated 6 April 1943, the business ceased trading on 30 November 1942. Sadok had died suddenly shortly before, on 19 June 1942, as a result of angina. In May 1943 his wife Lena Zadick was taken to Westerbork transit camp. Soon thereafter she was transported to Sobibor extermination camp, where she was murdered around 23 July 1943.

The Painting during the Occupation

A.C.N. van der Sloot

On 24 July 1945, the military authorities in the Netherlands promulgated a regulation stipulating that everyone was obliged to declare: all art treasures, antiquities and libraries that came into the possession of the enemy during the enemy occupation. The response of the art collector and architect A.C.N. van der Sloot (1895-1965) to this was, for example, to submit a declaration to the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit [Netherlands Art Property Foundation, SNK] about a painting by, among others, ‘Ribera’, entitled Vechtpartij [Fight].

Van der Sloot traded in antiques and art on a small scale. No indications were found during the investigation that he bought and sold art as an occupation. According to a post-war report from the American Art Looting Investigation Unit, during the occupation Van der Sloot had contact with Walter Andreas Hofer, Hermann Göring’s representative, to whom he wanted to offer paintings. Van der Sloot supposedly told Hofer that his business dealings were extremely successful thanks to the Germans. In 1941 Van der Sloot also tried to sell paintings to Hans Posse, director of the Staatsgalerie Dresden and head of the Sonderauftrag Linz [Special Mission Linz]. Van der Sloot established contact with him through Dr G. Vogeler, a doctor who during the occupation worked in the head office of the Soziale Verwaltung [Social Administration] under the Reichskommissar [Reich Commissioner] and to whom Van der Sloot rented a room in his home. Van der Sloot wrote the following in a letter Posse:
 I am an architect by profession and work for the German Wehrmacht, so I am not a professional dealer.

On 18 February 1946 Van der Sloot completed an SNK declaration form concerning the current NK 3533. On the form he stated that he had bought the Painting, to which he gave the name Vechtpartij [Fight], from ‘Meier van Praag Spiegelstraat Amsterdam’. In an undated letter to the SNK, Van der Sloot furthermore stated that he had bought the Painting ‘in 1941 from Meyer van Praag, residing in Spiegelstraat in Amsterdam’. According to a note added later to the declaration form, Van der Sloot made this purchase in October 1941 and paid 760 guilders for it. Documentation dated 1960 about the recovery and return of the Fighting Card Players from Germany to the Netherlands includes the following about the sale by Meijer van Praag:
As justification, it [the Dutch embassy] submits that Mr A.C.N. van der Sloot bought the painting in question in October 1941 from Mr Meijer van Praag, Amsterdam, Spiegelstraat. He was in need of money at the time because he had to hand over his cash etc. to the German authorities as a result of the occupying forces’ measures against the Jewish population.

It is not clear which person is being referred to in the post-war declarations by Van der Sloot to the SNK about the ‘Meier’ or ‘Meyer’ van Praag residing in Spiegelstraat from whom he supposedly bought the Painting in 1941. At the time the painting was sold, Meijer was not living in Amsterdam, but had already been residing at Baandert 22^E in Sittard for two years. His brother Sadok did live in Amsterdam, however, and moreover had an ‘antiques shop’ in Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. It is possible that Van der Sloot, nearly five years later, was mistaken about the owner’s first name. It is remarkable, though, that he knew the name of the owner’s brother living in Limburg and referred to it. A more likely scenario is the possibility that Van der Sloot actually referred to Meijer, who had sold the painting in or through his brother Sadok’s art gallery.

The Painting after the liberation

When Van der Sloot made a declaration to the SNK in February 1946 about the sale of the Painting, he stated on the declaration form that this sale was voluntary and had taken place in 1943. There is an undated note on the same form stating: ‘27 jan verk. 1942. f 1260’. It can be concluded from this that the work was sold in January 1942 to Weber for 1,260 guilders.

As described above, during the investigation, documentation dated 1960 was found that relates to the recovery and return of the Painting from Germany to the Netherlands. It is stated in a draft decision made in that year that the sale by Van der Sloot to Walter was forced:
The picture was later taken by the Dutch owner A.C.N. van der Sloot, was sold under duress during the occupation of the Netherlands by German troops or authorities and came into the possession of Walter Weber, Bad Ems, Viktoria-Allee 4, Villa Bismarck.

In that same draft decision, it is recounted that Van der Sloot offered in writing to sell the Painting at the end of 1941 for 5,000 guilders.

In April 1946, Van der Sloot received a letter from Weber asking him to send invoices relating to the paintings that he had purchased from Van der Sloot. In his letter, Weber listed a number of paintings, including one with the name Streitende Kartenspieler that, in view of the description, refers in all probability to the present NK 3533. According to Weber, he supposedly purchased this painting for 5,000 guilders.

On 21 May 1946 Van der Sloot referred to this request from Weber in a letter to Dr G. Vogeler. In this letter Van der Sloot stated the following about Weber:
That crook Weber wrote to me too. He asked for invoices and your address. He won’t get either from me. He can go to the devil. Now he writes that he was very old and half-Jewish and so on, but we know Mr Weber better.

NK 3533 ‘already held in the Netherlands before May 1940’  

After the war, Van der Sloot wrote in a letter to the SNK that the current NK 3533 was in his opinion ‘already held in the Netherlands before May 1940’. He admitted that he could not prove this because ‘the people who could have provided information about this have all died’.

Despite the fact that lengthy research did not reveal that the Painting was already held in the Netherlands before 10 May 1940, the Bundesamt [Federal Office] deemed this to have been proven because the contrary could not be proved and the following requirement had been met:
According to Art. 1 aao, in the case of cultural assets – which include paintings according to paragraph 4 of this regulation – restitution must also be carried out if the items were removed from the aforementioned area due to a purchase during the period of occupation of the territory of the applicant government and were located before the period specified in Art. 5 (reference date) in the country in question.

On 25 April 1961, the Painting was received by the administration department of Ministry of Finance. No indications were found in the archives of the SNK and its legal successors that the heirs of Sadok Marcus van Praag or Meijer Marcus van Praag registered their interest in restitution of the Painting or any other looted artworks prior to the current application.

Ownership requirements (section 2 of the assessment framework)

The documentation found during the investigation does not contain any information about the purchase of the Painting by Meijer Marcus. Although it is therefore not clear when he acquired the Painting, appraised sources, when taken together, indicate that Meijer was its rightful owner at the time it was sold in October 1941.

The Committee finds that Van der Sloot consistently made statements at various moments after the war about the person from whom he bought the Painting during the war. He stated on an SNK declaration form that he had bought an artwork, called the Vechtpartij [Fight], from ‘Meier van Praag Spiegelstraat Amsterdam’. In an undated letter to the SNK, he stated that he had bought the artwork ‘in 1941 from Meyer van Praag, residing in Spiegelstraat in Amsterdam’. Furthermore, it follows from documentation relating to the Painting’s recovery and return to the Netherlands that Van der Sloot bought it ‘in October 1941 from Mr Meijer van Praag, Amsterdam, Spiegelstraat’. Although the spelling of the surname is not unambiguous, the Committee considers it plausible that Van der Sloot was referring to Meijer Marcus van Praag when using the names ‘Meier’ and ‘Meyer’ in his statements. The Committee furthermore also attaches weight to the location of the purchase stated by Van der Sloot: ‘Spiegelstraat in Amsterdam’. It is known that Meijer’s younger brother, Sadok Marcus van Praag, had an antiques shop located at Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 37 in Amsterdam from the end of 1937 until it was put under the control of a Treuhänder [trustee] in November 1941.

During the hearing, the Applicants’ authorized representative stated that the brothers Sadok and Meijer, in part because of their professional activities, had a bond with each other that might have resulted in certain cases in Meijer selling art with, through or from Sadok’s shop, all the more so because Meijer no longer had a shop of his own before the war broke out. The Committee agrees with the Applicants that this scenario is plausible when considered in conjunction with the indications in the documentation, from which it follows that the Van Praag brothers lived in each other’s vicinity during various periods in their lives. It is known that the brothers were registered at the same address in Amsterdam around 1907. They were also living in Amsterdam simultaneously in 1912 and 1916. It is furthermore known that between 1907 and 1913 the brothers lived simultaneously in Brussels off and on. One of Meijer’s daughters moreover lived in Amsterdam with her family. The Committee therefore believes there is a real possibility that Meijer, despite the fact he was living in Sittard, regularly came to Amsterdam, where Sadok’s shop was also located.

On the grounds of this information, looked at as a whole, in the Committee’s opinion it is highly likely that at the time of the sale to Van der Sloot in October 1941 the Painting belonged to Meijer Marcus van Praag. This means that the ownership requirement of section 2 of the assessment framework has been met.

Conclusion with regard to the restitution application  

The Committee concludes that it is highly plausible that the artwork Fighting Card Players by an unknown artist came from the collection of Meijer Marcus van Praag, and that it is sufficiently plausible that he lost possession of it in 1941 involuntarily as a result of circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime.

In view of sections 2 and 3 of the assessment framework (criterion 3.1 and part 2 at the end of section 3), the upshot of all this is that the Committee will recommend that the Painting should be restituted to the Applicants.

The Committee has passed the application of 3 November 2023 concerning the paintings NK 1777 and RMT 1608 onto the RCE, and asked whether they want to address it.