No subject

Bruce - exactly 68 years after the Nazis invaded Holland.

Among the works are the classically dramatic "Iphigenia," which Sutton =
calls
"one of the most important Dutch history paintings"; Jan van der =
Heyden's
charming "View of Nyenrode Castle on the Vecht"; and Ferdinand Bol's
sumptuously textured "Louise Marie Gonzaga de Nevers (1611-1667), Queen =
of
Poland?"

The works illustrate the depth and breadth of a dealer whose taste
influenced the art scene on both sides of the Atlantic in the period =
between
the two world wars. Johannes Vermeer's "Girl With a Flute," part of the
National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and John Singer Sargent's
"Portrait of J. P. Wolff," at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center, were
among the legitimate Goudstikker sales.

For Charl=E8ne von Saher, however, pursuing works the Nazis took or sold =
in
her grandfather's name "has never just been about the art. ... I did it,
because something was stolen from my family."

She is sitting next to her mother at a round table in Sutton's office,
opposite where the "Iphigenia" temporarily hangs. They are strikingly
different and similar. Both have the long, lean lines of dancers. A =
former
figure-skating champion, Marei von Saher still teaches the sport.
Manhattanite Charl=E8ne von Saher, an Olympian at Lillehammer in 1994 =
and a
former skating instructor, sells real estate in Connecticut, where her =
older
sister, Chantal, and Chantal's daughter live.

More important, Charl=E8ne is her mother's partner in tracking down the
hundreds of Goudstikker holdings that are still unaccounted for, =
bringing,
she says, some helpful generational distance to the still emotionally =
raw
issue of her family's history.

Besides the paintings returned by the Dutch government, there are 36 =
other
works that have been restored to the family from various museums and
collections. A claim is still pending, Marei von Saher says, against the
Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., for two life-size paintings of =
Adam
and Eve by the early 16th-century artist Lucas Cranach the Elder.

"Charl=E8ne and I started as a team," Marei von Saher says. "We =
persevered.
... I have learned the meaning of perseverance."

"If you believe in something, you can't give up," her daughter says.

It was a 1997 phone call from Dutch investigative journalist Pieter den
Hollander - who would publish "The Goudstikker Case" a year later - that =
set
the von Sahers on the path of perseverance. Until then, Marei von Saher
says, she knew little of her father-in-law's accomplishments and tragic =
end.

"My mother-in-law did not want to open up a chapter that was painful to
her," she says. "We moved to this country from England to start a new =
life.
I had two beautiful little girls. The past was the past."

But the past also is the floating country, whose griefs can resurface at =
any
moment. Summering in the Netherlands with her grandmother, Charl=E8ne
remembers driving around the properties Goudstikker once owned and =
asking in
childlike innocence why the family no longer lived there. Her =
grandmother
would only say sadly that they couldn't afford them after the war.

And what did she tell her granddaughters about Goudstikker?

"She'd say, 'He would've loved you girls so much," Charl=E8ne von Saher =
says.

Den Hollander's research enabled the von Sahers to take a fuller measure =
of
the man.

The reporter came to see the family and took Charl=E8ne to the National
Archives in Washington D.C., where she was stunned to discover scores of
documents with her grandmother's name as well as that of Hermann =
G=F6ring,
Adolf Hitler's second-in-command.

When the Goudstikkers fled in 1940, Jacques Goudstikker gave power of
attorney to his best friend, the lawyer Dr. A. Sternheim. But Sternheim
suffered a heart attack on the day of the invasion, fell off his bicycle =
and
died.

That made it even easier for the covetous G=F6ring to set up dummy sales =
of
the Goudstikker paintings he wanted and have front man Alois Miedl run =
the
gallery as if nothing had changed. After the war, Goudstikker's widow =
tried
to recoup as much of the family's losses as possible.

"A lot of things were restituted," says Peter C. Sutton, the Susan E. =
Lynch
executive director and CEO of the Bruce. "What the Dutch government =
didn't
look into were the coerced sales by G=F6ring. They took those sales to =
be
legitimate."

The family, however, had a secret weapon, a small black notebook =
containing
an inventory of most of the gallery's holdings that Goudstikker took =
with
him when he fled.

Armed with the notebook and den Hollander's research, the von Sahers =
hired
Dutch and New York attorneys and began the process of filing reclamation
papers. When the suit was settled in 2006, Marei von Saher turned to =
Sutton
- an expert in Northern Baroque art - to mount an exhibit.

Though more than 100 of the works were auctioned at Christie's last =
year,
Marei von Saher always wanted to share the reclaimed works and her
father-in-law's achievements in some way with the wider world.

"I'm a believer that beautiful paintings should be seen by people," she
says. "Basically, what's in the exhibit are works that we love."

Museum Security Network / Museum Security Consultancy
toncremers at museum-security.org
http://www.museum-security.org
Handboek Veiligheidszorg Erfgoedbeheerders
http://www.handboekveiligheidszorgmusea.nl/=20