Director of Uffizi Galleries in Florence demands that Germany hands back Nazi-looted painting

Eike Schmidt, the German director of the Uffizi Galleries, with a black and white photograph of the stolen painting CREDIT: UFFIZI GALLERIES

The director of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence has demanded that Germany return an artwork that was looted by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Eike Schmidt, who is German himself, said Berlin had a moral duty to give back the painting, Vase of Flowers, by the 18th century Dutch artist Jan van Huysum.

It was looted from Florence by German soldiers in 1944 and is now owned privately by a German family.

Dr Schmidt, who has been the head of the Uffizi Galleries since 2015, said the family had refused “numerous requests” for the artwork to be returned.

The beginning of the new year was a good opportunity to once again make the case for the painting to be brought back to Italy.

A sign informs visitors that the original painting was looted by the Wehrmacht from Florence in 1944CREDIT: UFFIZI GALLERIES

To raise the profile of the case, a black-and-white photograph of the painting will hang in Florence’s Palazzo Pitti, where the original was once kept, with a caption explaining that it was stolen by the Germans.

Beneath the photograph is the word “Stolen!” in three languages – Italian, English and German.

“An appeal to Germany for 2019: We hope that this year may finally see the return to the Uffizi Galleries of the celebrated work of art entitled Vase of Flowers, a picture painted by Dutch artist Jan van Huysum that was stolen by Nazi troops in World War II,” Dr Schmidt said in a statement.

The Dutchman was a renowned still-life painter who lived from 1682-1749.

The oil painting was stolen by German soldiers as they retreated north through Tuscany following the Allied landings at Anzio and the liberation of Rome.

The Germans took the painting to a castle in Bolzano in northern Italy, the capital of the German-speaking region of South Tyrol.

It ended up in Germany, but all trace of it was then lost for decades.

A queue of tourists outside the Uffizi Galleries in Florence - one of the world's most acclaimed art galleries CREDIT: UFFIZI GALLERIES

It was only in 1991, shortly after German reunification, that it resurfaced.

Dr Schmidt, who was born in Freiburg in Breisgau in southern Germany, said that since then “a number of intermediaries” had contacted the Italian authorities offering to sell the painting back.

That was “absurd” and “outrageous”, he said, because the artwork is stolen property.

“The painting is already the inalienable property of the Italian State and thus cannot be ‘bought’,” he said.

The refusal to handover the painting was a reminder of the “wounds” inflicted on Italy by Nazi occupation.

“Germany has a moral duty to return this painting to our museum and I trust that the German government will do so at the earliest opportunity, naturally along with every other work of art stolen by the Nazi Wehrmacht,” Dr Schmidt said.