1. Senegal hopes new French law will trigger return of ‘Ségou Treasure’

The writings of Muslim scholar and mystic Omar Saïdou Tall are preserved in over 500 manuscripts currently spread throughout French museums. In Senegal, Tall is known as an anti-colonial hero and leader of the Toucouleur empire, from which French troops stole the archives along with jewelry, ritual objects, and weapons in 1890.

Earlier this year, France adopted a bill to facilitate the return of cultural property removed from former French colonies. While France and Senegal engaged in cumbersome diplomatic negotiations to return objects in the past, this new bill streamlines the process and allows France to return the entirety of the treasure at once. After the bill’s implementation, Senegal announced its intention to produce a full inventory of the stolen objects and lodge a formal restitution request.

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2. Brazilian authorities recover Matisse prints

On December 7, 2025 two armed men broke into the Mário de Andrade Library in São Paulo and stole eight prints by Henri Matisse and five paintings by Candido Portinari. This month, Brazilian authorities recovered the eight Matisse prints.

The theft occurred during business hours, when two armed men overpowered a security guard and two bystanders before taking off with the works. Police arrested one suspect the day of the theft and two additional suspects in April. The municipal secretary of culture and creative economy said they have “adopted measures to reinforce the security protocols of the Mário de Andrade Library and expand the protection of its heritage.”

The Matisse prints are from his 1947 “Jazz” series, of which there are only 250 copies. Officials describe the recovery as “news of enormous importance for the culture and heritage of São Paulo.” The Portinari paintings remain missing.

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3. Italian police recover stolen paintings worth over $10 million

Italy’s Carabinieri announced the recovery of three paintings by Paul ‌Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri Matisse stolen from the Fondazione Magnani Rocca near Parma, Italy. Their collective value is estimated to be $10.4 million.

In just three minutes the thieves forced their way into the first floor of the museum and stole the three paintings in a “structured and organized fashion.” The security alarm and swift police response prevented the gang from stealing additional works. The works were recovered from an apartment in Parma. Nine Maldovan nationals are under investigation for the theft.

The paintings are Paul Cézanne’s Still Life with Cherries (1890), Henri Matisse’s Odalisque on the Terrace (1922), and Renoir’s late-career Les Poissons (1917) (seen above from left to right). Still Life with Cherries is particularly noteworthy due to Cezanne’s use of watercolor, a medium the artist only embraced later in life.

While 2025 saw a shocking uptick in the number of museum thefts throughout Europe, the tide appears to be turning in 2026 as the number of recoveries is rising.

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4. Damascus Museum displays works returned from France

Unlike many objects I write about on ProvenanceWatch, the 23 antiquities returned to Syria were not looted. The artifacts were loaned to France by museums in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia and Palmyra in 2011, where they remained for 15 years after France cut diplomatic ties with the Assad regime. French President Emanuel Macron flew with the artifacts in his presidential plane for their repatriation in July 2026. This month, a selection of the antiquities went on display in Damascus.

The dates of the returned objects range from the ninth millennium BCE to the 15th century CE and include Mesopotamian, Canaanite, Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad materials. The artifacts on display include some of the famous Palmyrene funerary reliefs, inscriptions, and other Roman-era objects. This exhibition is part of a summer festival at the Damascus Citadel, which is part of the larger UNESCO World Heritage Site of the the Ancient City of Damascus.

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5. Nazi-looted painting by Albert Theer returned to heirs in Minnesota

When Austrian Jewish merchant Eduard Epstein fled Nazi-ruled Austria in 1940 he attempted to sell his art collection rather than see the Nazis liquidate it along with his company. He was jailed nine months for this infraction. This month, a small watercolor painting from this collection was returned to his heirs in Minnesota.

The painting in question is a mere 3 x 2 inches and depicts the Austrian officer Carl Graf Gleispach. It is one of Albert Theer’s many watercolor portraits, some of which ended up in the Museum of Military History in Vienna after WWII.

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Eduard Epstein owned the painting in the early 20th century. As a successful Jewish merchant and collector working in the Viennese textile industry, his company and property were liquidated by the Nazis in 1938. He attempted to sell his art collection in order to finance a move out of Nazi-occupied territory but was discovered by the authorities and imprisoned for 10 months. After his imprisonment, Epstein fled to America in 1941. He died only two years later due to ailing health exacerbated by his prison sentence.

Officials at the Museum of Military History in Vienna submitted the painting to an art restitution board in 2013, which facilitated the research that uncovered Epstein’s story. Nazis seized the painting in 1940 when Epstein attempted to sell his collection. The location of what remains of his collection is unknown.

Eduard Epstein’s only living heirs are Minnesota-based siblings Jackie Sondell and Jeff Lieb, the niece and nephew by marriage of Epstein’s daughter, Helen. Helen and their uncle Ernst had no children. This left Jackie and Jeff as their only heirs after Helen’s death in 2000. Though Helen is not alive to accept this return, Jackie said the return left her feeling hopeful that “maybe the world will see things a different way. Maybe there is hope for peace in the world.”

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6. Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum set to display rediscovered Bernini painting for the first time

A painting locked away in Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum since 1989 is set to go on display in December 2026 in an exhibition titled Bernini: Painter and Sculptor (2 December 2026-4 April 2027). According to the exhibition’s curator, Gudrun Swoboda, it is a previously undiscovered work by the father of Baroque sculpture, Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

When Portrait of an Old Man entered the collection of Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1920, curators struggled to identify its painter. The donor, Richard Lieben, attributed the work to Philippe de Champaigne. Curators and scholars suggested various possible attributions, including an anonymous Italian artist and several French or Flemish painters. Swoboda argues (convincingly, I might add…) that Gian Lorenzo Bernini painted the work around 1670 (they are also the author of a forthcoming book about the attribution).

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Additional specialists were privately invited to view and comment on the painting, but curators hope the exhibition itself will solidify the identification in the minds of Renaissance scholars and fans alike.

7. MFA embroiled in restitution case over painting from Koenigs Collection

Ownership disputes involving the Koenigs Collection have made headlines since the 1990s. This led to recent restitutions from high-profile institutions and academic articles examining the legal issues at stake. This month, heirs of the Koenigs Collection are demanding that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) return a small Herri met de Bles painting, Landscape with Burning City.

In an ironic twist, this painting depicting a traveller fleeing a burning city was once held by infamous Nazi war criminal and art thief Hermann Göring. The MFA acquired the painting in 1946 under false pretenses; the dealer provided doctored provenance documentation. Heirs to the Koenigs Collection are seeking its restitution as part of a larger effort to return over 2000 works from the collection.

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The original collector, Franz Koenigs, used his collection as collateral to secure a large loan from the Jewish-owned bank Lisser & Rosenkranz after the financial crisis of 1929. As the threat of a German invasion of Holland grew in 1940, Koenigs and the bank agreed to sell the collection to Daniël George van Beuningen through the dealer Jacques Goudstikker to prevent its expropriation from the Netherlands. The collection sold for less than half of its estimated value. Van Beuningen later sold over 500 drawings to Germany for Hitler’s Linz Führermuseum. Some works have returned to the Netherlands and sit in the collections of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Nederlands Kunstbezit (Netherlands Art Property, the country’s national collection), while others are scattered throughout public and private collections abroad. A significant number are in Russia (including the drawings sold by van Beuningen) after being taken as spoils of war.

The precise journey of Landscape with Burning City is unknown. Unlike the majority of the Koenigs Collection, this painting was not sold to Van Beuningen, but rather sold directly to Göring when he purchased the inventory of Goudstikker through a forced sale in 1940. In 1945, Göring loaded up his art collection on a train headed to the Bavarian Alps. It was intercepted by Allied troops, but the met de Bles painting was nowhere to be found. Without additional evidence, we can only guess at its journey between 1945 and 1946. The painting was likely looted from this train, possibly by Allied troops, before appearing on the market in 1946 when the MFA purchased it. Quickly, they realized the Dutch government was seeking its restitution. It is unclear why this painting did not return to the Netherlands in 1946.

The MFA is taking a “wait-and-see” approach to this dispute, stating they have “served as custodian of the painting since 1946.” Both Koenigs descendants and descendants of the shareholders of the Lisser & Rosenkranz bank are seeking the return of objects from the Koenigs Collection.

This is an interesting case, as the question of ownership sits uneasily next to questions of collateral. Cases like this often hinge on the status of a sale as “under duress,” often defined by the seller’s ethnic status and location between 1933 and 1945. The Lisser & Rosenkranz bank certainly entered the sale under duress, but Koenigs’ inability to repay his large loan (which triggered the sale by Lisser & Rosenkranz) is undoubtedly tied to wartime conditions in Europe.

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Time will tell who, if anyone, will regain possession of Herri met de Bles’ Landscape with Burning City.

8. Two individuals convicted of selling looted antiquities in Germany

Two individuals linked with an international antiquities trafficking ring were convicted of money laundering in a Hamburg court. While their names have yet to be released, publicly available information indicates they are the children of convicted antiquities trafficker Serop Simonian, whose clients included illustrious institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The pair are alleged to have conspired to acquire looted Egyptian antiquities and sell them using fake export licenses and false provenance. This ring is linked to the looting of a stele of Tutankhamun, later sold to the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum of Art and Civilization, and a Fayyum portrait seized from the MET in 2022.

The two convicts must turn over €32 million and pay a €90,000 fine.

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9. UK puts export ban on Rembrandt portrait

The government of the United Kingdom placed a temporary export ban on Rembrandt’s Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet (1657) by designating it a national treasure. Valued at £71.7 million, it is the most expensive work ever to receive the designation.

The purpose of the export ban is to give UK-based institutions the opportunity to purchase the painting and “save this masterpiece for the nation.” The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest says that this work meets three important requirements to qualify for the export ban: a strong connection with our [British] history and national life, “exceptional aesthetic quality,” and importance for the study of Rembrandt.

The ban extends until December 26, after which the current owner may accept any offer at the recommended price of £71,696,324.90 within 15 days.

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10. $4.3 million necklace stolen from Vienna museum

Two unidentified men entered Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) during normal business hours on Thursday, August 27. Using a hammer, they smashed the glass cabinet holding a dazzling Van Cleef & Arpels necklace set, snatched the jewelry, and fled on foot. Kronen Zeitung reported that a Balkan gang may have commissioned the “targeted” theft for a private collector.

The 200-carat platinum necklace with 673 stones was crafted for Egypt’s Queen Nazli for the occasion of her daughter Princess Fawzia of Egypt’s wedding to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the future Shah of Iran, in 1939.

MAK insists they worked closely with Van Cleef & Arpels on the security plans for the “Glanzstücke (Masterpieces): Van Cleef & Arpels High Jewelry x Masterpieces from the MAK Collection” exhibition. While security plans did not prevent the jewel theft, MAK director Lilli Hollein praised security staff for remaining calm and following protocol.

This is the latest in an ongoing string of jewelry thefts throughout Europe, including the theft of Bronze Age gold from a Spanish museum on the same day. Lured by “low-risk, high-reward” thefts, the continued ease with which thieves raid Europe’s museums, and the increasing violence of these crimes, are alarming. There are growing calls for museums to increase security, and even refrain from displaying authentic jewelry.

Check out some fantastic reporting by Deutsche Welle on the recent uptick in museum heists below:

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UNESCO announced additions to its World Heritage List and List of World Heritage in Danger this week. This follows UNESCO’s 48th World Heritage Committee, held in Busan, Republic of Korea, where member states voted to add a total of 25 new sites to the World Heritage List and six sites to the List of World Heritage in Danger. Of these six, three were submitted on an emergency basis: Mount Amel Castles (Lebanon), Sebastia (State of Palestine), and Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape (South Sudan). All three sites are located in conflict zones, and their addition on an “emergency basis” gives these states access to financial and technical assistance in protecting and conserving the sites.

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Sebastia is an archaeological site located in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that has been on the World Heritage List since 2012. It contains material heritage from the Iron Age, Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods. The Israeli government is currently debating legislation to expropriate the site and create the “Samaria” (Shomron) national park, a move UNESCO called “the main threat facing the site.” Critics argue that this expropriation is a pretext for expanding settlements, which would displace the town’s 3,500 residents and physically divide the archaeological site. Pro-Palestinian advocates hope its inclusion in UNESCO’s World Heritage in Danger List will offer additional protections for both its Palestinian residents and the heritage site itself.

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The Mount Amel Castles were newly inscribed on both lists. Their addition on an “emergency basis” comes after Israel bombed the Beaufort area and damaged one of the five medieval castles, Qalaat al-Shaqif (the Beaufort Castle). Lebanon’s Ministry of Culture confirmed that the castle is still standing, but says Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon makes it impossible to assess the damage at this time.

The five Mount Amel Castles were constructed in the 12th Century and subsequently expanded and adapted by Ayyubid, Mamluk, and later rulers. They sit atop strategic hilltops in southern Lebanon and witness to the evolution of defensive capabilities and networks from the medieval period to the 19th Century.

The Israeli government called the addition of Sebastia and the Mount Amel Castles a “weaponization of cultural heritage” and urged member states to vote against their inclusion. UNESCO argues that the continued military actions in southern Lebanon and the West Bank endanger this heritage, and member states ultimately voted for their inclusion.

The inclusion of the Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape (South Sudan) is in line with UNESCO’s broader efforts to expand and include underrepresented heritage in its World Heritage List. This unique ecosystem is located at the intersection of wetland and savannah landscapes. It provides one of the largest migratory habitats for terrestrial animals in the world, and is home to unique plants, birds, and mammals. Regional instability and a lack of resources have hindered South Sudan’s ability to conserve the site. Officials hope that additional resources through UNESCO can assist in maintaining this ecosystem for generations to come.

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2. New museum security plan announced and arrest made in theft of golden torque in France

France’s minister of culture, Catherine Pégard, announced a new national security plan and the arrest of a suspect in the shocking theft of a 2,500-year-old golden torque from Musée du Pays Châtillonnais. The new plan earmarks €30 million for the protection of museum collections in France over the next three years, “from the smallest church to the biggest museum.” The plan includes 33 additional security suggestions including infrastructure improvements and staff training.

This comes after two years of shocking thefts targeting silverware and jewelry throughout France’s museums, including Musée du Hiéron, Musée Lalique, Musée National Adrien Dubouché and, of course, the Louvre.

In the last few years, Musée du Pays Châtillonnais experienced two attempted break-ins and spent €150,000 upgrading their security system. Unable to breach the security system at night, thieves instead stole the treasure in broad daylight. This has led the president of France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research to suggest that museums replace valuable works with modern copies, a solution Pégard says “would be a mistake.” Rather, Pégard argues that each solution must be adapted to its locale.

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3. American Alliance of Museums hits back at Trump Administration

The American Alliance of Museums released a statement condemning the Trump Administration’s attacks on the Smithsonian Institution. In it, the AAM says the Smithsonian represents “the highest standards of scholarship, stewardship, and public service” and calls the politicization of museums a threat to the “integrity and independence of museums across the country.” In a show of professional solidarity, the UK equivalent to the AAM, the Museums Association, reposted the statement.

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Reporting from ARTnews asks questions many of us in the museum world share. What is the Trump Administration’s end goal? Are they simply grandstanding against “cultural elites,” or are they prepared to put in the work necessary to overhaul the curation of the Smithsonian Institution? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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4. Team at Santa Clara University launches AI bot to track down Nazi-looted art

A small team of researchers at Santa Clara University has launched a new AI bot meant to aid provenance researchers. The bot queries the Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg database to streamline inquiries relating to family names, artistic mediums, and other data points. Prior to the launch of this bot, data was difficult to search due to incomplete or incorrect information, and a lack of authority terms. The use of AI allows one to bypass the tedious task of updating data-entry norms by creating a tool that can search this database without the need for uniformity within the data structure.

Researchers warn that artificial intelligence can make mistakes, and users should double-check all results before acting on the information. The team is currently working with no external funding and hope to secure additional funding to expand the project.

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This is an exciting development in provenance research. Incomplete, inconsistent, and sometimes flawed data are often the source of research headaches. Implementing this on a wider scale by building models focused on different geographic areas or time periods could improve research speeds and accessibility. Potential avenues could involve incorporating proprietary databases into a singular bot, or creating bots with geographic or temporal focuses.

The ethical concerns of AI remain pertinent, yet the creation of specialized AI tools separate from major corporations offers a pathway with fewer negative externalities. Bots created with limited databases bypass most issues around data privacy; when compared to large-scale LLMs such as ChatGPT, these bots require far less energy and their environmental impact is minimal.

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This is a pilot program, but one with promise. Check out the bot for yourself here.

5. Judge in Modigliani case says current owners might owe millions in restitution

In June of this year, a judge ordered billionaire David Nahmad to return Modigliani’s Seated Man With a Cane to its rightful heirs after an 11-year legal battle. The judge has now ruled that the rightful heirs are entitled to prejudgment interest as compensation for the years the heirs were deprived of their property. This could total in the millions.

The precise amount hinges on the value of the painting itself. The parties to the lawsuit submitted divergent appraisals with Nahmad’s appraiser valuing the painting at $6.5 million, while the heirs’ appraiser valued it at $20 million. The judge will calculate the award amount at an evidentiary hearing in September.

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1. President Trump orders signs installed at Smithsonian warning of “inaccurate information”

In an executive order issued Friday, President Trump ordered the Department of the Interior to install temporary signage outside of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History correcting “inaccurate information” within the Museum. It also suggests the signage should inform visitors of alternative resources to learn about American history.

This comes on the heels of a 162-page report excoriating Smithsonian leadership for what it described as a “radical” leftist ideology that undermines faith in American institutions. Director Anthea M. Hartig faced two congressional hearings on Capital Hill meant to investigate “political bias” in her curation and interrogate her loyalty to the United States. Critics of Trump’s policy toward national museums include lawmakers and historians, some of whom accuse the administration of “political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda.”

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2. An Ancient Celtic necklace stolen from Burgundy museum.

France’s museum world was rocked by yet another jewelry heist this week. On Friday, July 24, thieves entered the Musée du Pays Châtillonnais as any visitor would–by paying for their tickets and walking through the main entrance. Around 10:30 am, they smashed a display case containing a 2,500-year-old gold collar from the Vix Treasure. They fled back through the main entrance and have yet to be apprehended.

The treasure comes from the royal gravesite of a Celtic woman, now known as the Lady of Vix, buried in Burgundy around 500 BCE. The stolen piece is a golden torque described by the mayor of Châtillon-sur-Seine as “priceless” and “unique in the world.”

The theft comes after two previous attempted nigh-time burglaries, which led the museum to increase its security budget by €150,000. The increase was spent on additional security cameras and motion detectors. Yet these improvements did not stop this “attack on cultural heritage and the public interest” echoing the audacious theft from the Louvre in 2025.

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3. French museum launches “Wanted” campaign to track down looted art.

Nazi forces looted the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans when invading parts of France in 1940. 86 years later, over 400 works of art from the museum’s collection remain missing. In an effort to raise awareness and ultimately recover the lost works of their collection, the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans launched the “Wanted” campaign on social media.

After years of unsuccessful attempts to raise awareness about their looted collection, this campaign is drawing attention with its dramatic graphics. In preparation for this campaign, museum officials compiled and posted a list of looted works on their website. According to Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, four works were returned in the past two years and they hope this campaign will spark a larger wave of returns.

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4. Unknown Katherine Read painting discovered through BBC program, Fake or Fortune?

On June, 23 2026, BBC One aired the latest episode of Fake or Fortune? and publicized the discovery of a previously-unattributed Katharine Read painting. Read was an 18th-century Scottish painter known for her portraiture of women and children, including Queen Charlotte and her children. Many of her works remained with the families who commissioned them, and works by Read rarely come up at auction.

Retired accountant and distant relative of Katharine Read, Mary-Louise Wedderburn, inherited the painting from her uncle over 20 years ago. While she suspected it might be a Read painting, it was not until experts commissioned by the BBC confirmed the attribution that she knew for sure.

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The portrait in question features an Indian woman, suggesting Read painted it while living in India near the end of her life. Additionally, this is thought to be the earliest example of an English woman painting an Indian sitter. The estimated value of the portrait is approximately $130,000, though Wedderburn has not indicated any plans to sell.

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5. South Korean museum returns Qing Dynasty sculptures to China

The Kansong Art Museum in Seoul marked the return of two Qing Dynasty sculptures to China through a ceremony on July, 23 2026. The ceremony came six months after a summit meeting between the countries in January, where South Korea pledged to return the artifacts.

The sculptures in question are two 1.9-meter-tall lions dating to the Qing Dynasty. Korean collector Jeon Hyeong-pil purchased the artifacts from an auction in Japan in 1933 and founded the Bohwagak Museum (now the Kansong Art Museum) five years later. They remained at the museum until this week, when they returned to China.

China says it plans to restore the statues and display them at their national museum within a year. Chinese officials view the exchange as a positive sign and hope they can “expand various cooperation and exchanges regarding displaced cultural heritage” in the future.

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1. Third looted painting from Goudstikker collection recovered from trash in Amsterdam

A Dutch Golden Age painting rescued from roadside trash becomes the third recovered work from Jacques Goudstikker's looted collection.

Last year, we covered the story of a Nazi-looted painting discovered in an Argentinian real estate advertisement. This painting belonged to Amsterdam-based Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, whose collection was plundered by the Nazis during WWII. Publicity around this case led to another discovery in May, when art detective Arthur Brand tracked the location of Portrait of a Young Girl by Dutch painter Toon Kelder (1894–1973) to the heirs of Dutch SS General Hendrik Seyffardt. It also belonged to Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker prior to the rise of National Socialism.

This week, Brand announced the recovery of yet another painting looted from the Goudstikker collection.

Amsterdam resident Robert van der Hoek discovered a diptych likely painted by Hendrick van der Burgh (1627–1644) in a pile of trash on the side of the road. He picked it up and hung it in his cellar for months. After hearing of the other two looted paintings, van der Hoek reached out to Brand. The art detective was able to confirm that this painting also belonged to Jacques Goudstikker and will now return to his heirs.

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2. US returns three antiquities to Mexico.

The Manhattan D.A.’s office announced the return of three antiquities to Mexico on Wednesday, one of which was seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The three objects are a shaft-tomb sculpture of a Standing Male Figure in the Nayarit style (100–400 CE), a Xochipala Bowl (1200–900 BCE), and an Aztec Obsidian Micro-Blade Core (1000–1500 CE).

The Xochipala Bowl was seized from the Merrin Art Gallery in 2025, after research uncovered its illicit status. The latter of these three objects was previously owned by convicted antiquities trafficker Eugene Alexander, who is a key player in the ongoing and large-scale investigation conducted by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit.

3. Two Shanghai auction house executives sentenced in major fraud case

Two managers at a major Shanghai-based gallery were convicted of orchestrating a far-reaching fraud scheme this week. The scheme involved forgeries and price manipulation that led one collector to spend over $74 million on forged works and artificially inflated sales.

Court documents report that the two individuals arranged for gallery associates to artificially inflate prices by bidding exorbitant amounts. This resulted in one collector spending $247,000 on a Qianlong era vase, which was later determined to be a modern forgery.

This case raises a few pertinent questions. First, how widespread is this kind of corruption in the Shanghai auction world? And is it limited to Shanghai? The other is more abstract. Should we care if billionaires get scammed when the fix is painfully simple: demand legitimate provenance documents before purchasing art or antiquities.

What are your thoughts? Leave them in the comments below!

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4. Claim filed for Soulages painting that sold for nearly $5 million in November

This past Monday, the Zeckendorf family filed suit in the New York State Supreme Court for the return of Pierre Soulages’ Peinture 161 x 200 cm, 14 novembre 1958.

According to the complainants, the painting was stolen between 1977 and 1980. It was then listed on the Art Loss Register from 2008 until 2025, when it sold for nearly $5 million at Christie’s. The provenance listed by Christie’s states the painting was sold to Marion Zeckendorf by the Kootz Gallery in 1959 and passed through Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer Gallery in New York in 1984. There are no records of its location after 1968, when it was listed as part of Zeckendorf’s estate at the time of his death.

The dispute is ongoing. Time will tell whether records can prove Zeckendorf ownership, or if the painting will remain with its 2025 buyers, Patricia G. Ross Weis and Robert F. Weis.

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5. Congresspeople introduce new bill to preserve government commissioned art in USA

On July 14, 2026, two congresspeople introduced the PRESERVE Act (“Protecting Resources and Ensuring Stewardship of Enduring Records of Visual Expression Act”) meant to protect government-commissioned art. This bill would require the General Services Administration (GSA) to form a committee to oversee artworks in government buildings deemed “surplus property.” In doing so, they hope to protect American national heritage for future generations.

The GSA announced in 2025 that they would be selling the Wilbur J. Cohen Building in Washington, D.C., colloquially known as the “Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art.” This would likely result in the building’s destruction. Critics of the move argue that the art and architecture of the Cohen building are historically significant and deserve preservation. The art includes works by noteworthy female artists, and murals celebrating the social and economic achievements of the Social Security Act, passed in 1935.

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Additional stories:

Bavaria approves the creation of Nazi-loot panel and independent provenance research entity

Battle over Koenigs Collection rages on

Funding setback complicates director’s stormy tenure at Kunstmuseum Bern

Zendaya under fire for wearing ancient Iranian earrings while promoting The Odyssey

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The secretary of the Smithsonian, Lonnie G. Bunch III, has responded to the Trump administration’s 162-page criticism of the institution in a memo addressed to staff. In the memo, Bunch reaffirmed the Smithsonian’s mission, writing that it is “driven by scholarship, accuracy and an uncompromising commitment to tell the fullness of America’s story.”

He added that the institution must remain focused on its “steadfast commitment to scholarship, nonpartisanship, independence, accuracy and integrity” and “pursue knowledge with rigor” and “serve the American public with clarity and care.”

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2. Ukraine fights looting on the battlefield

To combat Russia’s rampant looting and destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage, the Ukrainian military published a handbook on the protection of cultural property during war. The handbook follows renewed attention to the issue after Russia’s return to the Venice Biennial sparked controversy in March.

The handbook outlines Ukrainian soldiers’ responsibilities under international humanitarian law, provides guidance on identifying and documenting damage to cultural heritage, and details the precautions military personnel should incorporate into operational planning. It was developed with the assistance of the Regional Center for Human Rights and draws on recommendations from UNESCO, ICOM, and other international cultural heritage organizations.

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The purpose of the handbook is to “do everything possible to preserve our cultural heritage, minimise its loss, and bring war criminals to justice. Preserving these sites is not just about culture. It is about our memory and our responsibility to future generations.”

3. Two more Latchford-linked antiquities returned to Indonesia

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has announced the return of two bronze Buddha sculptures to Indonesia. The eighth-century bronzes were trafficked through an organized looting network in Indonesia before being acquired by Douglas Latchford, who was indicted on charges of trafficking Southeast Asian antiquities in 2019. The case was dismissed following his death in 2020.

Latchford later sold the sculptures to an American collector between 2003 and 2007, relying on forged provenance documents and other deceptive practices that he repeatedly used to market looted antiquities. Authorities are not pursuing charges against the collector.

The sculptures depict the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in the Srivijaya style. Each figure is shown in the chaturbhuja ("four-armed") pose and wears a crown bearing an image of the Amitabha Buddha.

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The sculptures were formally returned to the Indonesian Embassy during a repatriation ceremony hosted by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York on July 8.

4. Bayeux Tapestry arrives in London

After months of careful planning and public debate, the Bayeux Tapestry arrived in London with little fanfare. Under police escort and the cover of darkness, the tapestry was transported to the British Museum as a small crowd, including the French ambassador to the United Kingdom, looked on.

This marks the first time in over 1,000 years the tapestry has been on British soil, despite being woven in Canterbury during the 11th century. French President Emmanuel Macron described the loan as more than “moving a work of art,” calling it a symbol of Europe’s decision to “act together” in confronting the “challenges of our time.”

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The Bayeux Tapestry will be on display at the British Museum from September 10, 2026 until July 11, 2027.

5. The Met and Manhattan D.A.’s office announce return of additional antiquities.

In recent years, the number of ancient Mediterranean antiquities returned to their countries of origin has increased dramatically. Nearly every major museum in North America has repatriated objects, underscoring the widespread presence of looted antiquities in museum collections.

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In the past week alone, the Manhattan D.A.’s office announced the return of 59 antiquities to Italy, Iraq, and Indonesia. 45 of these objects were seized from the Met and returned to Italy.

Among those seized from the Met was the Terracotta psykter-column-krater (400 BCE), smuggled out of Italy by Fritz Burki, who also had a hand in trafficking the famous Euphronios Krater. The krater depicts various Greek gods, including Dionysius and Herakles, on Mount Olympus.

The Iraqi antiquities were trafficked by Hassan Rihani, who has also been linked to the illicit trade in cultural property from Jordan, Israel, and Syria. They include a pair of Sumerian gypsum worshipper figures dating to the Early Dynastic II period (2700–2600 BCE).

The heritage returned to Indonesia was not sculptures, but human skulls, viewed as sacred heirlooms and guardians of their communities. They were formally repatriated in New York, during a ceremony with Winanto Adi, Consul General of the Republic of Indonesia.

The scale and pace of these seizures raise broader questions about museum collecting practices. How did leading institutions acquire so many looted antiquities? Who are the people responsible for ignoring or failing to investigate these acquisitions?

For readers interested in the broader context, Professor David W. J. Gill’s recent study examines the history of antiquities repatriations at The Met:

Gill, D. W. J. 2026. “Context Matters: Classical Repatriations and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Journal of Art Crime 35: 55–93.

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After 130 years, Swiss minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider has visited Nigeria to announce the return of 18 Benin Bronzes. The 18 objects in this return were located in the Museum of Ethnology at the University of Zurich, the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, and the Musée d’ethnographie in Geneva before their transfer to Nigeria.

Like much of Benin’s heritage currently abroad, these objects were the spoils of colonial brutality. British troops plundered the palace of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897, seizing thousands of culturally significant objects in the process. The most famous of these are the Benin Bronzes, a collection of ornate metal plaques, sculptures, and other ornaments that decorated the palace of the West-African kingdom. Collectively, these repatriation efforts have become symbolic of the larger struggle waged by formerly colonized groups to reclaim their looted heritage.

Nigeria and the Benin Oba have been lobbying for the return of heritage for decades, and Switzerland’s transfer of these objects is part of a larger trend of European and North American museums reckoning with their colonial histories. This repatriation was also a collaborative effort involving stakeholders in Nigeria and Swiss museums themselves, some of whom joined together to create the Benin Initiative Switzerland in 2021. In collaboration with Nigerian stakeholders, this initiative conducted the provenance research necessary to initiate the restitution, and uncovered an additional five trafficked objects from the Niger Delta region, which were also returned with the bronzes.

In addition to the restitution, Baume-Schneider’s visit to Nigeria was accompanied by a bilateral agreement between Nigeria and Switzerland meant to combat the illicit trade of cultural property. This is the latest act of collaboration between Switzerland and Nigeria meant to reckon with the unabsolved wounds of colonialism.

How do you think institutions should address colonialism in your country?

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2. Heirs seek return of Van Gogh from Musee d’Orsay

Unlike many heirs seeking the return of Nazi-looted property, 98-year-old Klaus Kallmann remembers firsthand the Van Gogh painting that once hung on his German-Jewish grandfather’s wall. For nine years, he has waged a legal battle in the United States for its return from Musee d’Orsay in Paris.

The painting in question is Van Gogh’s 1899 Hôpital Saint-Paul à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, depicting his doctor, Théophile Peyron, in front of the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole psychiatric hospital where van Gogh was treated shortly before his death.

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While France has made recent strides in addressing Nazi-looted property, the Kallmann case has vexed France’s Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation (CIVS). There is a gap in provenance between 1932, when it was in the possession of Karl Kallmann’s grandfather Felix Kallmann (1853–1938), and 1934 when it appears on the Paris art market with the dealer Paul Rosenberg. No documents exist to clarify when and how the painting left Kallmann’s possession or entered Rosenberg’s. The question of ownership hinges on whether a hypothetical sale by Kallmann to Rosenberg prior to Hitler’s rise to power should be considered “under duress.”

Kallman says that his grandfather remained adamant his art collection was intact prior to Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933, after which the family’s property was seized. However, some archives show Felix Kallmann attempted (unsuccessfully) to sell the painting to the Staatsgalerie in Berlin in 1932, though there are no records of a successful sale. The family’s lawyer has argued that this is a “clear case” of Nazi spoliation and that France must adhere to the 1998 Washington Principals and consider “inevitable gaps or ambiguities in provenance, given the time elapsed and the circumstances of the Holocaust period.”

This is an ongoing case, and the next meeting in the adjudication process is scheduled for September.

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3. 20 artifacts seized from MET and repatriated to Cambodia

The Antiquarian Fine Ancient Arts Gallery in New York surrendered 20 Cambodian antiquities linked to accused trafficker Douglas Latchford. The gallery voluntarily surrendered the artifacts after the Department of Homeland Security approached them with evidence they had been looted and illegally removed from Cambodia.

These objects include a 10th-century sculpture of a Kinnari, for which Latchford forged provenance documents falsely claiming its country of origin as Thailand. In reality, it is one of the many objects looted and illegally exported by Douglas Latchford from the UNESCO World Heritage Site, Kol Ker.

Bradley J. Gordon, an American lawyer who has worked with Cambodian and American authorities to effectuate the return of hundreds of objects to Cambodia, called the statue a “national treasure” and says he is grateful for American officials’ diligence in pursuing this case.

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4. Antiquities seizures from the MET top $95 million

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has seized over 300 objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 2017, collectively valued at more than $95 million. While museum officials describe the repatriations as the result of collaborative efforts with their team and the D.A.’s office, tension appears to be simmering below the surface. The head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit told the New York Times that the frequency of seizures “spoke for themselves” and questioned why it is necessary for the D.A.’s office to force the museum’s hand in repatriating looted art.

Officials at the MET argue that their recently expanded team of provenance researchers is working diligently, having initiated the return of 18 artifacts since 2023. The discrepancy between this number and the number of objects seized is glaring, and there is also a discrepancy between the MET’s inventory of objects seized and investigators, with the MET claiming 198 objects have been seized, while investigators put the number at 348. The reason for this discrepancy lies in divergent cataloging. While the MET might list 20 pottery fragments belonging to the same vase as one object, investigators count each fragment as a separate object. Depending on the provenance of the vase, some of these fragments may have arrived at the MET through different channels, and necessitate different legal approaches.

While the 2023 announcement that the MET would hire a team of provenance researchers has certainly sped up the rate of repatriations, one has to question whether it has done enough. The number of objects in the MET’s collections tops one million and, while provenance for modern art does not require the same level of due diligence, one has to admit that a ten-person provenance team cannot possibly carry out the amount of research necessary to identify all looted art in their collections.

5. Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov’s photograph stolen from Lithuanian National Museum of Art

A photograph taken by one of Eastern Europe’s most influential photographers was stolen from the Lithuanian National Museum of Art on June 28, 2026. The photograph is part of his 1993 series At Dusk, in which the artist documented his hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union through hand-tinted panoramic photographs. Officials say this was a targeted theft, as Mikhailov’s photographs were the most valuable in the exhibition.

The theft of Mikhailov’s photograph is the most recent in a string of European museum thefts in recent years. Smaller museums who lack the budget for significant security upgrades are increasingly at risk, as institutions and law enforcement lack the manpower and, sometimes, the incentive to track down thefts of less valuable objects.

6. Trump administration releases report lambasting the Smithsonian Institution for “erasing” American history.

In the midst of a chaotic and rainy America 250 celebration in Washington D.C. on the Fourth of July, the Trump administration quietly released a 162-page report excoriating Smithsonian leadership for their “extreme political activism” that they say erases American history.

This report follows pressure from the administration to share details on their America 250 exhibit prior to its opening, which museum leadership ultimately acquiesced to earlier this year. It is the most recent act in a string of moves Trump has initiated during his second term, including the closure of the Smithsonian’s Office of Diversity and an executive review of their exhibitions, all of which drew ire from museum professionals.

Smithsonian leadership has yet to respond to this report. In an unrelated interview, the Smithsonian’s current secretary Lonnie Bunch said that “the notion of being a more perfect union, not the perfect union, is really what motivates me.”

This week was wild ride in the world of cultural heritage. The increasing seizures associated with Cambodian heritage and Douglas Latchford (and Matthew Campbell’s recent book!) highlight the unfinished nature of decolonization and provenance research. These stories show us that public interest in cultural heritage is also growing, with theNew York Times story on MET seizures making it to the front of the Arts section this week. At the same time, thefts in Europe and Trump’s most recent attacks on the Smithsonian remind us that heritage remains vulnerable even within museum collections.

What are your thoughts on the future of heritage work in America? How can global collaboration assist institutions in decolonizing their collections? Drop your thoughts in the comments!

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An employee at a Paris storage facility admitted in court to the theft of a Picasso painting worth up to $17 million. French police discovered the painting during a routine drug bust in Champigny-sur-Marne, along with thirty-seven pound of marijuana, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of designer clothes.

The painting was stolen from a Singapore-based collector while being held in a Paris-based storage facility. The title of the painting and date of its theft have not been released, but details are emerging. The subject of the painting is Picasso’s long-time mistress and model Marie-Thérèse Walter, and the recovered work was authenticated by Picasso’s son as belonging to a set of portraits painted in 1937.

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2. Germany and Netherlands agree to return 2000 objects to Ghana.

On June 20, 2026 Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, the foreign minister of Ghana, announced that Germany and the Netherland will return 2000 culturally significant objects to Ghana. The comes on the heels of the Next Steps conference held in Ghana’s capital, Accra, where over 80 countries gathered to establish actionable commitments to rectify the historical injustice of the transatlantic slave trade.

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These pledges coincide with the Dutch Ministry of Culture offering a formal apology for their role in the transatlantic slave trade, and a commitment to “support historical truth telling.” The Netherlands and Germany each presented Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama with inventories of the Ghanian objects in their national collections, which will aid Ghanian heritage officials in deciding which artifacts to request for repatriation. The Dutch Ambassador H. E. Jeroen Verheul described the inventory as a “first step” in the longer restitution process.

3. Germany restitutes looted painting to Polish heirs.

On the eve of World War I, the German-Jewish antiquarian book-dealer Jacques Rosenthal opened a an antiquarian book and art shop in Munich. The son of antiques dealer Joseph Rosenthal, Jacques grew up in the industry and apprenticed in his brother Ludwig’s shop before opening his own bookstore between 1909–1911.

Born Jakob Rosenthal, he travelled to Paris on behalf of his brother’s business in 1878 where he made a name for himself as a well-read and discerning dealer. Enamored with French culture, he changed his name from Jakob to Jacques after this trip.

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Under National Socialism, Jacques was forced to sell his business to a longtime employee and friend George Karl in 1935. During this period, he was also forced to sell his home and much of his art collection for pennies on the dollar. Still, Jacques remained active in the daily activities of the shop until his death in 1937 due to complications from a stoke suffered in 1932. His descendants continued in the antiquarian business, opening shops in Switzerland and America.

During the period of persecution, Jacques wife, Emma, sold Portrait of a Young Man by Friedrich von Amerling for a seventh of its market value. After the war, the painting landed in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, where it remained until this year. Earlier this month, the Bavarian State Painting Collection announced it would restitute Portrait of a Young Man to the heirs of Jacques and Emma Rosenthal, an act they hope “honor[s] the persecution suffered by the Rosenthal family.”

This restitution comes after criticism of the Bavarian State Painting Collections for failing to address internal knowledge of the Nazi-linked provenance of many paintings in its collection.

For more on the Rosenthal family, see Elisabeth Angermair’s 2002 book, Die Rosenthals: der Aufstieg einer jüdischen Antiquarsfamilie zu Weltruhm.

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4. Trump administration pushed to eliminate Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues.

The State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues oversees the United States’ policy on Holocaust-era restitutions and education. The Trump administration is now seeking to merge this office with the administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism.

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This would mark a significant reorganization of the State Department’s approach to antisemitism and Holocaust issues, which risks merging what should be overlapping concerns. The current office is the only US government office advocating for Holocaust survivors, a shrinking group of increasingly vulnerable individuals. It also risks turning Holocaust education and advocacy into a partisan issue, a concern that has materialized in reference to antisemitism in the United States. New York Rep. Jerry Nadler has called the move “abominable” and a “vain attempt to consolidate power” at the hands of Trump’s administration’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Yehuda Kaploun. Should the merger succeed, it would mark the first time American efforts to support survivors and Holocaust education is headed by a political appointee.

This merger cannot occur without the approval of a sharply divided congress, which is receiving mixed messages from American Jewish organizations. Combat Antisemitism Movement, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the World Jewish Congress and Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters have all voiced their support for the merger, while more liberal Jewish organizations and leaders have called to halt the move.

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5. Manhattan D.A. announces the return of two antiquities to Nepal.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. announced the return of two antiquities to Nepal collectively valued at over $2.5 million. The first is a gilt bronze figure of Padmapani that once stood in the Tham-Bahil Monastery (Vikramashila Mahavihara) in Kathmandu. Dated to the 13th century, this statue was photographed in situ in 1971, before it was smuggled out of Nepal and landed in the collection of convicted antiquities trafficker Dorthy Weiner.

The second statue was also photographed in situ in 1969 in Bhai Deo Boyegu festival in the i-Baha Bahi Monastery in Patan, Nepal. It was smuggled from the country in the 1980s, after which it landed in a private collection, before being donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from whom the Antiquities Trafficking Unit seized it this year.

These two statues are the latest two repatriation of 20 completed by the Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU) in the last two years, stemming from a singular trafficking operation resulting in the conviction of 18 individuals so far. An addition seven alleged traffickers are currently awaiting extradition.

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6. Ireland to establish Restitution and Repatriation Advisory Panel.

Ireland’s Advisory Committee on the Restitution and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage has announced recommendations urging the Irish government to establish a Restitution and Repatriation Advisory Panel and increase provenance capacity across its institutions. Over 70% of Ireland’s museums lack a dedicated provenance researcher, and though institutions lack the manpower to effectuate restitutions and repatriations on a large scale, there is a desire to return both Nazi-era and colonial-era looted property.

Ireland’s Ministry of Culture Patrick O’Donovan stated he will bring a plan forward to the government to implement the committee’s recommendations. Should he succeed, Ireland will follow in the footsteps of countries such as the Netherlands and Switzerland in creating a panel to address contested heritage.

1. Artificial intelligence identifies lost painting.

A family’s curiosity and the AI chatbot Gemini have helped identified a long-lost painting.

Hellen Plotkin purchased Interior: Lady in Black from a thrift store in White Plains, New York for less than $100 in 1966. Its previous title, Portrait of Miss Don Wauchope, was inscribed on the back of the frame. For sixty years, the painter’s identity remained a mystery until Plotkin’s son uploaded a photograph to the Google chatbot, Gemini, which identified it as the work of Scottish Colorist, Francis Cambell Boileau Cadell (1883–1937).

Subsequently, experts confirmed the artist identification but said the subject was not Miss Don Wauchope, but another of Cadell’s models, May Easter. Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell was one of the Scottish Colourists, a group of four 20th-century post-impressionist painters whose work is currently in the Scottish National Gallery collection, as well as other institutions. On June 4, the Plotkin family sold the painting at auction for $189,000.

The use of AI in provenance research is an emerging but controversial practice that may significantly impact future research. Artificial intelligence has the potential to overcome systemic problems, such as disparate datasets, through the collative nature of its algorithms. It can also streamline and improve OCR search results within digitized archives and speed up the often monotonous work of checking databases. That is not to say that AI is a cure-all for provenance woes, but that AI, when used responsibly, could increase the rate at which heritage professionals are able to conduct this research.

This also begs the question of where one draws the ethical line. Do the social and environmental impacts of AI outweigh its potential benefits? Or can we mitigate these externalities in order to utilize AI responsibly in the heritage sector? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

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2. Items recovered from the Drents Museum heist.

In January 2025 thieves blew open the entrance to the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands, and made off with a four priceless gold artifacts. These objects were on loan from Romania for the exhibition, “Dacia—Empire of Gold and Silver” and the theft caused tension between Romania and the Netherlands, with the Dutch government paying out over $6 million in insurance fees.

Dutch officials arrested suspects almost immediately, and thus far three men are convicted for their roles in the theft. As part of a plea deal, three of the four items were returned in April 2026. The flashiest of the set, the Coțofenești Helmet, had minor damage while the two bracelets remained in mint condition. All recovered artifacts have since returned to Romania.

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Earlier this month, three of the conspirators were sentenced to 47 months in prison.

3. Manhattan D.A. announces the return of sculptures to Cambodia.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. announced the return of three sculptures to Cambodia on June 10 2026. These are just a few objects recovered through multiple criminal investigations targeting Southeast Asian trafficking networks and conducted by Manhattan’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit.

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Two of the three objects were seized from the Metropolitan Museum of Art after passing through the hands of mother-daughter duo Doris and Nancy Weiner. As with many Cambodian objects of cultural significance, they were smuggled out of the country in the 1970s, and emerged on the New York market in the 1980s.

Previously, The Guardian Diety (Rakshasa) stood at the entrance to the Prasat Chen temple, where its broken feet and base remain. This temple is part of the larger UNESCO World Heritage site Koh Ker, which suffered heavy looting during the 1970s. Douglas Latchford was one of many unscrupulous dealers who smuggled sculptures from Koh Ker and the above sculpture is one such statue.

For more on Douglas Latchford’s extensive smuggling ring, see Matthew Campbell’s book, The Man Who Stole the Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession, and a Global Art Conspiracy.

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4. Colorado auction of Mexican antiquities sparks backlash.

Mexican authorities called for the suspension of an antiquities auction organized by Artemis Fine Arts in Louisville, Colorado. Over 80 objects offered in the sale were flagged by Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), who are now calling for their return.

Like many antiquities-rich countries, Mexican law vests the ownership of all antiquities to the government, and outlawed their export in 1827. In the eyes of Mexican officials, all antiquities outside of Mexico and lacking proper provenance are considered illicit.

In 2018, the government of Mexico announced an ambitious campaign to combat the trafficking of Mexican antiquities called, Mi Patriomonio No Se Vende (My Heritage Is Not for Sale). Since then, officials and activists have taken to social media and utilized diplomatic channels to call out dealers and auction houses trafficking in Mexican antiquities and to negotiate their return.

The dealers at the center of this scandal argue that they adhere to the 1970 UNESCO Convention. This raises frustratingly common issues. While the dealers may not be violating domestic or international law, without documentation proving an object left Mexico prior to the passage of Mexico’s cultural patrimony law in 1827, or through a legal pathway, it is presumed to have been removed illicitly.

Yet without comprehensive documentation, most American dealers and the American legal system will accept a provenance that indicates an object left its country of origin prior to 1970. Repatriation in these cases is often the result of private negotiations rather than legal decisions. Time will tell whether Mexican officials will succeed in reclaiming these objects.

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5. Russia bombs UNESCO World Heritage site in Kyiv

The Dormition Cathedral is part of the Pechersk Lavra monastery complex in Kyiv and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Early Monday morning, Russia launched an aerial assault on Ukraine’s capital and heavily damaged the cathedral. Russian officials denied hitting the sacred landmark, claiming American-made defense missiles were responsible for the damage, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack “intentional” and “targeted.” On the ground reports from Ukrainian officials, as well as photographs and videos reveal drastic damage to the cathedral and Shahed drones in the impact zone, confirming Russia’s culpability in the destruction.

Zelenskyy has since urged G7 leaders to increase their pressure on Moscow and support for Ukrainian anti-ballistic capabilities in light of Russia’s “serious crimes ​against Christian culture.”

The stories in this roundup raise a diverse set of questions. When and how should heritage professionals employ AI? How can legal frameworks better facilitate the return of antiquities with little provenance? Will the exposure of global art and antiquities trafficking rings, such as the Douglas Latchford case, lead to a decrease in trafficking or a shift in tactics? Leave your thoughts on these and other questions in the comments!

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1. Russia Returns to the Venice Biennial

If you ask Russia’s delegate for international cultural exchanges, Mikhail Shvydkoy, Russia never left the Venice Biennial. The presence of the Russian Pavilion, closed or occupied by allied countries, is equivalent to the presence of Russia.

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In 2022, Russian curators pulled out of the Biennial to protest their country’s invasion of Ukraine and organizers’ decision to allow the Russian Pavilion to reopen in 2026 has led to widespread backlash. One day before the 61st Venice Biennial was set to open, the entire international jury stepped down to protest the inclusion of both Russia and Israel. The feminist groups Pussy Riot and FEMEN staged protests at the festival’s opening. Protest posters around the Biennial highlight the devastating impact of Russia’s invasion, announcing the cancellation of imaginary events for Ukrainian authors and artists killed by Russia. Over 100 artists have threatened legal action if their work is not removed from consideration for the visitor’s choice award. For the first time in the Biennial’s history, Italy’s culture minister has refused to participate in the opening of the festival.

This is not the first time global events have led to protest and institutional turmoil at the Biennial. Anti-war protests in Europe and the United States led to a similar mass resignation in 1968, and in 1974 the president of the Biennial altered the location and organization of the festival due to protests. 2026 marks another year in which the Venice Biennial doubles as a stage for geopolitical discourse and protest.

This flies in the face of Ukrainian activists documenting Russia’s large-scale theft and destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage. Russia has looted over 10,000 works of art from the Kherson Art Museum alone. Unlike other instances of looting in Ukraine, the objects stolen from Kherson are thoroughly documented, meaning Ukrainian heritage professionals know exactly what was lost. A number of looted objects have appeared in exhibitions in Moscow, including those by Ukrainian artist A. S. Havzdynskyi whose work appeared in the 2024 “Always New Kakhovka” exhibition in Moscow. Recently, Ukrainian Intelligence released the names of 14 individuals linked to the illegal expropriation of Ukrainian heritage to Russian or Russian occupied territories.

Russia’s inclusion in the 61st Annual Venice Biennial legitimizes their flagrant disregard for human rights, including the systemic theft and destruction of Ukrainian heritage in an effort to erase and appropriate Ukrainian identity.

This spring was a busy one for those tracking Nazi-linked restitutions. Rather than separate entries for each case, I have organized them into categories: Restitutions, Repatriations, and Structural Developments.

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2. Nazi-linked Restitutions

Tänzerinnen-Brunnen (Dancers’ Fountain) by Georg Kolbe stood at the center of the Georg Kolbe Museum’s courtyard for decades. Commissioned in 1922 by German-Jewish businessman Heinrich Stahl, recent provenance research revealed that Stahl sold this sculpture under duress during WWII. Due to Nazi race laws, the Stahl family was forced to sell their home and possessions before their deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Heinrich Stahl was murdered in the camp, while his widow survived and emigrated to the United States in 1950.

The sculpture remained missing until the 1970s, when it surfaced in the garden of the Georg Kolbe Museum. After a convoluted legal battle, the parties reached an amicable agreement and ownership of the statue was returned to the heirs in February 2026.

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Similarly, the heirs of British-Jewish dealer Oscar Stettiner conclued an 11-year legal battle to reclaim Modigliani’s Seated Man With a Cane. Nazis seized the painting from Stettiner’s Paris gallery during their occupation of France. After surviving the war, Mr. Stettiner filed a successful claim in 1946 and a French judge ordered the painting be returned to him. The subsequent owner claimed they had since sold the painting, and it was never returned to Mr. Stettiner. Over a decade ago, Oscar Stettiner’s grandson Philippe Maestracci enlisted the company Mondex to assist him in recovering the painting.

Billionaire David Nahmad purchased Seated Man With a Cane through Christie’s in 1996. In response to Maestracci’s claim, Nahmad argued that he purchased the painting in good faith and denied it was the same one taken from the Stettiner family. When scrutinized, his arguments failed with the judge in this case saying, “the evidence shows a straightforward and persuasive chain of ownership/right of possession flowing directly from Mr. Stettiner to Nazi seizure to a forced sale.”

In Germany, the Bavarian State Paintings Collections restituted a painting by Lesser Ury titled, Interior with Children (the Siblings) (1883) to the heirs of German-Jewish banker and art collector Curt Goldschmidt. This follows a multi-year scandal in which collection officials were accused of concealing knowledge of the Nazi-looted works in their collection. This painting in the tenth to be restituted following the resignation of the collection’s director last year.

Germany also restituted a number of rare books and manuscripts to the heirs of French resistance fighter Marc Bloch shortly before his internment at the Pantheon in Paris. The French ambassador to Germany has called the move “a strong sign of Franco-German friendship.”

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3. Nazi-linked Repatriations

This spring, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in Poland continued their repatriation efforts across 18 countries. Over the past few years, multiple works have returned to Poland through both litigation and private negotiations. However, Russia continues to ignore the 20 diplomatic resolutions submitted by the Polish government regarding Polish objects believed to be in Russia.

One of these objects is a twelfth-century liturgical manuscript looted from Poland during WWII. It was last recorded in the Archdiocesan Archive in Poznań in 1939 before being marked as missing in 1966. It appeared on the London rare book market in the 1990s and then entered the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale (through which one can still view a digitized copy of the manuscript). Poland formally requested its repatriation in 2024 and after two years of research, the manuscript returned to Poland in January 2026 after a repatriation ceremony in New Haven.

In addition to seeking repatriations, Poland is participating in the repatriation of looted objects taken into their territory. In March 2026, Poland repatriated 91 objects to Greece which are now held in the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens. This marks the first such repatriation from Poland, a country which lacks comprehensive legislation addressing the restitution of Nazi-looted property. These 91 objects include a pair of ornate finials, used to decorate the rollers of a Torah scroll, and other ritual pieces.

Greece’s Jewish community was devastated by the Shoah, in which the Nazis murdered 83% of Greece’s Jewish population. Polish officials hope this restitution is “the beginning of a consistent, systematic approach to historical justice.”

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4. Legal and Structural Developments Regarding the Return of Nazi-looted Property

The United States and the Netherlands have both made strides in their long-standing efforts to improve processes related to the restitution of Nazi-looted art.

After passing the House of Representatives and Senate, Donald Trump signed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (Hear) Act of 2025 into law on April 13, 2026. This law updates the 2016 version of the bill, making it more difficult to dismiss cases based on procedural grounds such as statutes of limitations. For more on the impact of this law, see Thompson Hine LLP’s writeup here.

The Netherlands passed legislation in 2021 that was also favorable to Jewish claimants and established a national restitution committee. This committee has since made recommendations regarding the stewardship of “orphaned” Nazi-looted art. These works of art were looted by the Nazis but lack any know heirs to whom they can be restituted.

Currently, the objects are part of the Nederlands Kunstbezit-collectie (Dutch Art Collection or NK Collection) at the Dutch Cultural Heritage Agency. However, the committee has recommended that the ownership of this collection be transferred from the Dutch government to a foundation created by the Dutch Jewish community, who would be entrusted with its stewardship. Through this setup, the Jewish community would dictate how and when the works are exhibited, and to whom and where the works might be loaned.

Critics suggest the government has failed to act in good-faith regarding the “orphaned” art in their possession. The heir of Benjamin and Nathan Katz argue that the courts have ignored the 2021 updates to Dutch restitution law, and recently appealed a decision denying the return of 222 objects looted by the Nazis. Another heir claimed the government has failed to make even “minimal” efforts to restitute art in this collection, an accusation that data corroborates with fewer than 500 works being restituted since the Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets in 1998.

As additional works surface on the art market and in Dutch private collections, time will tell whether this legislation is able to “[do] justice to [this] history and to the Jewish community.”

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There are nascent worries about the future of provenance research and Nazi-linked cultural heritage in Germany. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party hopes to win control of Saxony-Anhalt in the fall, where the German Lost Art Foundation (DZK) is located. The AfD is campaigning against funding the DZK and the so-called “baseless general suspicion of all museum inventories.” While the AfD has attracted media attention in recent years, the German government continues broader efforts to repatriate and restitute looted art with the German Lost Art Foundation (DZK) recently celebrating its 10,000th work restituted.

The recent scandal at the Bavarian State Paintings Collections (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen) highlights the continued necessity of Holocaust-era provenance research in Germany and beyond.

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5. Heritage Destruction Continues in Gaza

As of March 2026, UNESCO has verified damage to 164 heritage sites in Gaza, but the geographic stratification of this data hints at a radical undercount. 153 of these sites are located in the Gaza Governorate, while heavily impacted areas such as Rafah and Khan Yunis have numbers in the single digits.

Critics argue that UNESCO’s response to Israel’s assault on heritage in Gaza is muted and ineffective, and exhibits a pattern of “omission and understatement.” While UNESCO has issued statements regarding Gaza, and assisted in the protection of select sites, it has failed to name Israel as the party responsible for this destruction, nor has it worked with the International Criminal Court to initiate proceedings against Israeli officials. In contrast, UNESCO engaged in all of these activities in relation to Syria during its civil war, and Russia during its current war with Ukraine.

UNESCO relies on voluntary contributions from the international community. The outsized influence of the United States appears to have left officials at UNESCO hesitant to confront the U.S. or its close allies when they flagrantly violate international law. This sets a dangerous precedent that threatens to normalize widespread heritage destruction during wartime.

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1. German Art Gallery specializing in Nazi-owned art sparks controversy by advertising on Truth Social.

German Art Gallery (GAG) is a privately-owned gallery specializing in art previously owned by the Third Reich. This week, they sparked controversy by advertising on Donald Trump’s far-right Truth Social platform. The founder, a Dutch national operating under the pseudonym Marius Martens, has called the decision, “provocative…yet bold and deliberate.”

The story begins with a Truth Social user reaching to the The Art Newspaper (TAN) after seeing advertisements for “Art of the German Elite, 1933-1945” on the platform. Worried that GAG was valorizing Nazism, the user sought out professionals in the art world to analyze the ad. Speaking to TAN, GAG’s owner insists that the term “elite” is not meant to signal moral or cultural value, but demarcate those in German leadership between 1933–1945. The purpose of him gallery is not to valorize Nazis, but the highlight the often-overlooked aesthetic and historical value of art prized by the Nazi regime.

Martens purchased almost all works formerly owned by Nazis that came onto the market in the past 15 years, amassing one of the largest private collection of Nazi-owned art in the world. Unlike many tales of Nazi art, issues or looting and spoliation are not the central ethical quandary. This “totalitarian art” was favored by the regime, and often commissioned by Nazis themselves. Initially, Martens claimed that he had no interest in selling his collection. However, the ballooning prices buyers were willing to pay for this art led him to change his tune. He has sold works for as much as €200,000 to collectors in Europe, the US, UK, and Australia.

This story raises vexing ethical questions. Much of GAG’s art lacks explicit Nazi symbolism. In order to remain compliant with Articles 86 and 86a of the German Penal Code and in compliance with Article 137c, d and e of the Dutch Penal Code, users who wish to view works depicting Nazi figures or symbols are required to register with the gallery’s website. While legally compliant, this is a small hurdle to clear for online Neo-Nazis, and does nothing to stop the sale of this art to those with far-right aspirations.

The GAG argues that openness and transparency around Nazi art increases public awareness and betters discussions of this “tragic period in European history.” In line with this, the GAG has also loaned works to European institutions and Martens has served as an consultant for exhibitions such as the Museum Arnhem in the Netherlands 2023–4 exhibition, Art in the Third Reich: Seduction and Distraction. This was the first time since 1944 that these works were displayed together, and there is no doubt the exhibition and subsequent publication contributed to scholarship on the Third Reich and fascist aesthetics.

The global rise of far-right ideologies and revival of Nazi sentiment makes the GAG’s most recent advertising move audacious and troubling. Martens argues that he has no far-right ties, and that this advertising decision is simply meant to reach an American audience, as half of all Americans are conservative. Perhaps he is unaware of political dynamics in twenty-first century America, but it should not shock those who follow American politics to know that the user-base of Truth Social is not comprised of the average conservative American. Only 10% of self-identified republicans use Truth Social, and its popularity has declined since 2020. The subset of Truth Social users trends farther to the right than most other platforms.

In my view, Martens arguments in defense of this advertising choice are disingenuous. The focus on advertising to conservative Americans, rather than a broad American audience, suggests that Martens is aware that his client base’s political leanings trend to the right. By advertising on Truth Social, he is knowingly engaging with an audience that includes adherents to Nazi ideology and that these Neo-Nazis might seek out this art as an expression of their views. This undercuts his assertion that GAG’s transparency around Nazi art leads people “to a better understanding of the period and helps to prevent similar events from happening again.” There is no world in which selling Nazi-owned art to Neo-Nazis achieves this goal.

Of course, this leaves us with an unresolved central issue: how should institutions and private collectors approach these works? Should they all remain locked away? Or should we only hide away those with explicit Nazi imagery? Alternatively, should institutions exhibit them? If so, who should be permitted to do so, and how does one do this responsibly? I would love to hear yours in the comments!

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2. The Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) to restitute watercolor by Félicien Rops to heirs of French-Jewish collector.

After more than five years, the Royal Library of Belgium (La Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, KBR) announced it would restitute La Buveuse d’absinthe by Félicien Rops to the heirs of Armand Dorville.

Armand Dorville was French-Jew and lawyer who acquired a collection of over 450 paintings prior to the outbreak of WWII. After fleeing occupied France in 1940, he settled in Cubjac before dying in 1941. According to his will, Dorville left his art collection to his sisters and nieces. Hoping to avoid confiscation of this collection by the Vitchy government, Dorville’s heirs planned to auction the collection in Nice in 1942. Their plan was unsuccessful, and the Vitchy government confiscated and sold the collection in 1942. It was only after the end of the war that Dorville’s only surviving heir, a niece named Marie-Thérèse, received any compensation for the sale. Armand Dorville’s three sisters and three other nieces were all deported and murdered in concentration camps.

The KBR insists that they were unaware of its dubious provenance, having purchased the painting from a French dealer in 1968 “in good faith.” Yet critics argue the library failed to conduct basic due diligence given that the painting’s documentation and inscriptions clearly indicate it was auctioned off in Nice in 1942.

In 2020, De Standaard published that the KBR was in possession of this painting, and that it was sold under duress during the Nazi period. Heirs of Armand Dorville immediately approached the KBR to request restitution. For five years, these requests remained unanswered until Minister Vanessa Matz publicly commented on the situation. In December of 2025, Matz announced the restitution of La Buveuse d’absinthe, and this month lawyers for the heirs will meet with KBR officials to work out the logistics of this return. Regarding this restitution, the minister said, “Unlike institutions that dispose of controversial works by announcing they are ‘returning’ them, I insist on the term ‘restitute’. Talking about restitution is essential! It confirms the spoliation and acknowledges the harm. When we describe things as they are in relation to a victim, we’ve already taken part in their recovery process.” It is unclear if the heirs will request physical custody of the painting, or choose to allow its continued display at the KBR.

Unlike most of Europe and North America, Belgium does not have a formal restitution commission or legal framework for addressing Nazi-looted art. Matz hopes to change this by establishing a commission to create a “clear, research-based procedure and a coherent doctrine” for addressing Nazi-looted cultural property.

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3. Trial begins in Nice for 10 defendants involved in France-based art theft ring.

A 2017 tip led French authorities to seize 20 works of art, including two by Pablo Picasso, in Côte d’Azur. Undercover police posed as a Swiss buyer and his secretary to investigate the illegal sale of art in the south of France. After making contact with the dealer, he led them to a house in Peillon, north of Nice. What they discovered amounted to a “makeshift museum” of stolen art, including Picasso’s Le vieux roi and Le clown.

Some of the works traced to robberies in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in October, 2017 Èze in November, 2017. The ring of thieves moved stolen art through a networks of private channels to avoid scrutiny and evade authorities. The current trial combines all preliminary investigations into a single case. Prosecutors argue that the defendants partook in a sophisticated scheme involving the theft, storage, sale, and transfer of stolen art and that the Peillon estate served as a logistic hub for these activities.

The trial is set to conclude January 19, 2026, and authorities hope it will bring clarity to the path these works took before being intercepted by police.

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4. “Smiling Medusa” discovered in Turkey

Turkish authorities announced the discovery of an unusual Medusa carving on the ceiling of the Roman stoa (covered walkway) in the ancient city of Amastris. Typical depictions of Medusa appear frightening and according to scholars, may have provoked fear within enemies and discouraged invasion. Yet this Medusa carving has a “childlike” expression, and resembles contemporary depictions of Eros. Professor Fatma Bagdatli Cam has interpreted the carving as reflecting peace and prosperity during this period of Amastris history, as there was no need to discourage invasion when invaders were absent. This carving is located on a ceiling tile from the stoa, meaning that Medusa was smiling down over those walking beneath the stoa in ancient Amastris.

The Roman stoa (a covered walkway) at Amastris is one of the largest monumental structures discovered in the Black Sea region of Northern Turkey. It likely corresponds to an agora, or marketplace, suggesting that ancient Amastris was a bustling commercial hub in the Roman Period. Led by Professor Fatma Bagdatli Cam of Bartin University’s Archaeology Application and Research Center, this excavation is working to rebuild the stoa to its former glory as part of the Turkish Ministry of Culture’s “Heritage of the Future” initiative.

Excavations and restorations continue, and the archaeological team is optimistic their work will reveal additional finds and further illuminate the lives and activities of those in ancient Amastris.

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5. Questions of provenance annul sale of Chinese vase.

French courts ordered Galerie Kraemer in Paris to refund €2.8 million to Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani due to the precarious provenance of a Chinese vase he purchased in 2012.

According to The Art Newspaper, investigators believe the vase was sold in Brazil 20 years ago, before passing through Paris flea markets and three private collectors. Eventually, Laurent Kraemer purchased it for €180,000 before consigning it to Galerie Kraemer, from whom Sheikh Hamad purchased it at the Biennale des Antiquaires in Paris in 2012.

After a series of furniture forgeries rocked the gallery in 2016, Sheikh Hamad reevaluated his purchase. Sheikh Hamad hired experts to evaluate the vase, who concluded that Galerie Kraemer’s 18th-century date was “highly improbable,” or even “impossible” due to questions around its gilded bronze mounts. Other experts, however, disagreed. These contradicting expert opinions led a commercial court to rejected Sheikh Hamad’s claim in 2021. In 2022, the judge overseeing a criminal case into this sale commissioned additional testing. According to the results of this testing, the composition of the bronze mount was “not incompatible” with the original 18th-century date, but evidence of artificial aging and the use of a 19th-century mold technique raise serious doubts regarding the validity of this date. Ultimately, the courts agreed to annul the sale and ordered Galerie Kraemer to repay Sheikh Hamad €2.8 million.

If there is one thing I have learned in my time studying the art world, it is not to underestimate the sophistication of criminal networks dealing in art or antiquities. Since the 90s, multiple large-scale theft and trafficking busts have illuminated the lengths people will go to when dealing in illicit cultural property. Perhaps I am preaching to the choir, but a robust demand for verifiable provenance from both private collectors and public institutions could halt this industry. Forgeries too are increasing in sophistication, and it is not always possible to distinguish between forgery and artifact–particularly when dealing with antiquities. Comprehensive and verifiable provenance is the primary mechanism through which these forgeries could be flagged.

It has taken decades, and most museums and other cultural institutions were dragged kicking and screaming, but the tide is shifting in the museum world. Yet private collectors continue to buy and sell unscrupulously. Wealthier individuals have even set up privately-funded museums in America and abroad where they can display their loot-filled collections. While this move leads to increased scrutiny, I worry it will also lead to an ever widening divide between the private and public markets for art and antiquities. While institutions and ethical collectors refrain from purchasing unprovenanced materials, unscrupulous private collectors will simply move underground. How can officials combat a market they cannot see? What does responsible legislation look like in these situations? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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1. Advisory Commission on Nazi-Looted Art in Germany offers model that new Arbitration Tribunal should follow.

In November of 2025, the Advisory Commission on Nazi-Looted Art in Germany (ACNLA) mediated a restitution agreement between the heirs of two different victims of Nazi persecution. In 1937, Max Stern was forced to dissolve Galerie Stern in Dusseldorf under the order of the Reichskulturkammer (Reich Chamber of Culture). Research concerning the Deutsche Zentrum Kulturgutverluste (German Lost Art Foundation) and Galerie Stern’s clients has uncovered a large Jewish clientele, many of whom appear to have sold works under duress through the gallery. One of these works is Peasant Breakfast by Pieter van Plas (c.1595-1650). Hugo Heinemann owned this work prior to being murdered by the Nazis in a concentration camp.

This is a unique case, as the ACNOLA diverged from their guidelines, which state that the dealer who sold the work in question should be considered the “primary victim.” In this case, that would be the Galerie Stern. According to the settlement agreement, restitution to the heirs of the “primary owner,” (the heirs of Galerie Stern) did not constitute a “fair and just solution for all victims of National Socialist policies” as stated in the 1998 Washington Principles. Rather than offer a non-binding recommendation, the Commission assisted heirs through mediation, and reached an “amicable agreement” with all of the parties.

The ownership of Peasant Breakfast is now shared equally between the Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation, the heirs of Hugo Heinemann, and an government association, Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR). LVR will retain physical custody of the work until it is released to the other two parties, who must jointly agree on where it goes next.

This was the last decision handed down by the ACNLA before it was disbanded at the end of 2025. The Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit NS-Raubgut (Arbitration Tribunal of Nazi-looted Cultural Property) is now in effect, but critics worrying this new structure will favor institutions over victims. Yet officials at the Max Stern Restitution Project remain hopeful that the tribunal will follow the Advisory Commission on Nazi-Looted Art’s example and continue to render decisions “guided by the ethical and moral frameworks entrenched in the Washington Principles.” Time will tell if the Arbitration Tribunal of Nazi-looted Cultural Property will live up to these aspirations.

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2. Beyond valuable art and manuscripts–returned Nazi loot includes family heirlooms and keepsakes.

The flashiest stories of Nazi-looted cultural property involve works of significant financial or cultural value. Yet the majority of victims and heirs did not lose collection of art or valuable libraries, but everyday items. Wallets, jewelry, or clothing seized in concentration camps. Heirlooms, furniture, or household items left behind by fleeing families. Many of these objects hold immense emotional value, yet remain in archives and other institutions.

Few researchers or institutions focus on these items and the reason for this neglect is not difficult to identify. There are vanishingly few records of what the average person in Nazi-occupied territory owned prior to the National Socialist regime, or lost during the war. A recent piece by Milton Esterow and Michaela Towfighi in the New York Times sheds light on the stories of people seeking the change this.

The Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art in Vienna recently identified the heirs of the “Mautner collection.” This collection contained sheet music, printed folk art, and patterns designed by Konrad Mautner. A provenance researcher at the museum traced the Mautner family and was able to identify two living heirs of the Mautner collection: Konrad and Anna Maunter’s grandson, Stephen, and a cousin.

After the heirs visited the museum to view the collection, they decided to donate it back to the museum. It remains at the Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art in Vienna with an additional placard telling the Mautner family story.

Beyond individual institutions and researchers, there are other movements aimed at restituing Nazi-loote property. The #StolenMemory project at the Arolsen Archives aims to returning items seized at concentration camps to their rightful heirs. The wallet of a french resistance fighter. A ring. Books.

The Arolsen Archives, which holds over 30 million documents and pertaining to the victims and survivors of Nazi Germany, and there are still over 2000 items in the Arolsen Archives waiting to be returned. At times, it is the item rather than heirs that remain elusive. One example of this is a shofar owned by the Glattstein family from the town of Edelény, Hungary.

Sharon Glattstein Levine believes her relatives hid this item, along with other valuable, in their attic before being shipped to concentration camps. In 2014, Sharon believes she saw the item displayed at a local library in Edelény and she now believes it is in the possession of the family of a local historian. Her 97-year-old cousin, Erika Jacoby, remembers celebrating the High Holy Days in Edelény with the shofar, and has not seen it since leaving Hungary and surviving several concentration camps. “One of my biggest pains,” she said, “is that they stole everything.”

Efforts to contact town officials and restitute the shofar have thus far been unsuccessful. For more information on #StolenMemory and to join the effort of track down heirs and items, head to the #Stolen Memory website.

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3. British Museum plans to hire a “treasure hunter” to track down missing gold.

Disgraced former curator at the British Museum, Peter Higgs, was accused of selling uncatalogued jewelry from the 15th–11th Century BCE as well as later Hellenistic and Roman pieces beginning in 2016. He denies these allegations. The scheme was uncovered in 2023, and Higgs was subsequently fired.

The items include late-Bronze Age gold jewelry and Greek and Roman gemstones. All of these are small, moveable pieces and the lack of cataloguing makes them are easy to sell on the private market. Much like the Louvre Heist, officials worry that items made from precious metals will be melted down, and that gems will be removed from their setting and sold.

Since 2023, the British Museum has assigned five staff members the task of recovering the estimated 1800 missing items. The team has recovered over 600 items, yet progress has been painstakingly slow. According to reporting by ArtNews, the British Museum will hire additional personnel in 2026 to accelerate their investigation.

If you have any information regarding the missing items, please contact recovery@britishmuseum.org.

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4. India unveils repatriated artifacts in Delhi.

After successfully lobbying to stop the sale of the Piprahwa relics by Sotheby’s Hong Kong, the Indian government has unveiled a number of these artifacts as part of an exhibition titled, “Light and the Lotus: Relics of the Awakened One.”

In 2025, Sotheby’s Hong Kong was set to auction a number of Piprahwa artifacts owned by the grandson of British imperialist William Claxton Peppé. Peppé had laid claim to the land these items were excavated from in 1898, and the government of India claimed Sotheby’s was continuing British “colonial exploitation” by selling the objects. Eventually, Sotheby’s cancelled the sale.

India’s Hindu-nationalist Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said that the opening of the exhibition was a “very special day” and that the “sacred relics of Lord Buddha are India’s heritage.” His stance has drawn criticism from those who accuse his government of exploiting cultural heritage to push a Hindu-nationalist agenda.

The exhibition is ongoing at the Rai Pithora Cultural Complex in Delhi.

5. France and Mexico Mark 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations with manuscript exchange.

Two pre-Hispanic illustrated manuscripts are set to make separate journeys across the Atlantic to celebrate the 200th annicersary of diplomatic relations between France and Mexico. This agreement was reached in May of 2025, when French President Emmanuel Macron made his first official visit to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

The Codex Azcatitlán will travel from Paris to Mexico City, while the Codex Boturini will make the journey in reverse. Due to conservation concerns, they are rarely exhibited, and travel even less frequently, markingn a rare opportunity to view each Mesoamerican codex.

Restitution activists hope this loan will tip the scales in their favor, as Mexico has long sought the repatriation of Mesoamerican objects and manuscripts from European collections. Given the history of colonization in Mexico, the majority of these objects left the country long before the 1970 UNESCO convention. This means that Mexico and other formerly-colonized countries have little legal recourse to ask for repatriation, and must rely on the goodwill of those currently in possession of their heritage.

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Unless you took a break from the news over the holidays, you are aware of the United States’ belligerent actions in Venezuela over New Years Eve and Day. Early on January 1, 2026, US forces began bombing Caracas and “captured” Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.

As of January 4, Maduro has arrived in New York where he is expected to face charges of “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machine guns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machine guns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” according to Attorney General Pam Bondi. The death toll in Venezuela has risen to 40, with both military personnel and civilians losing their life, and President Trump announced that the United States will “run” Venezuela for the foreseeable future. I would call this modern-day colonialism, but the tactics are far from modern. It is just colonialism.

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In addition to bombing military sites, some are reporting that the United States bombed Cuartel de la Montaña 4F, a military museum and mausoleum dedicated to the late Venezuelan leader Huge Chávez. Details on this are opaque, with posts on social media purportedly showing the bombing were the primary source for this news in the early hours of the attack. Later, Colombian President Gustavo Petro shared a list of sites targeted by US forces on X, which has not been independently verified, and includes Cuartel de la Montaña 4F. Cuban and Korean outlets have raised alarms about this story as well. The Cubans worry that their heritage, including the mausoleum of Che Guevara and the grave of Fidel Castro, could be next, and The Chosun Daily called the bombing of Cuartel de la Montaña 4F an act of “psychological warfare.” However, some outlets are reporting that video’s circulating on social media do not show the bombing of Cuartel de la Montaña 4F, but the Cagigal Observatory in Caracas that is currently a military barrack. No outlet have independently verified damage to Cuartel de la Montaña 4F as of January 4, 2026, and time will tell if initial reports are accurate.

Cuartel de la Montaña 4F was converted into a military museum in 1981, though it doubled as barracks until the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013, when it was converted into a mausoleum. The potential destruction of this site has both political and symbolic significance for Venezuela, as it is the location of Chávez’s first attempted coup on February 4, 1992, and widely considered to be the origin place of the left-wing Chavismo movement, founded by Chávez.

Venezuela is home to three UNESCO recognized World Heritage Sites with an additional three on the “Tentative List.” The City of La Guaira, on the Tentative List, was bombed by US forces. Due to its status as the primary port of Caracas, and therefore of potential military value, the port of La Guaira likely qualifies as a valid military target under international law. The arguments defending the bombing of Cuartel de la Montaña 4F have less to stand on. If Cuartel de la Montaña 4F has been bombed, it would violate the 1987 additions to Article 53 of the Geneva Convention, which states that it is prohibited to “commit any acts of hostility directed against the historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples.”

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In spite of what recent American actions might signal, the decolonization movement has been growing in Central and South America. Repatriation is a central part of this movement, as it makes it possible for current and future generations to access to their cultural heritage. This is central to both individual and communal identity formation, and often forms a central part of the national building project. This is especially felt among previously-colonized communities, whose heritage if often scattered throughout North America, Australia, and Europe.

In Central and South America, these issues remain pertinent. Since the early 2000s, artifacts from countries such as Peru, Costa Rica, Chile, Mexico and more have slowly made their way back to their home countries and communities. Due to the legal infrastructure of colonization, the mechanism through which items return often differs from the return of looted materials in Europe and the Middle East.

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While looting and theft did (and still does) occur in Central and South America, a large number of artifacts were removed from during the colonial period, when there was nothing “illegal” about removing objects from unowned or “public” lands. Seeking gold and mineral deposits, “explorers” frequently collected ancient objects as they sought out new avenues to exploit the land and people of Central and South America. Additionally, colonizers and stole many objects during acts of colonial violence.

This differing context is reflected in case studies. When the Brooklyn Museum repatriated over 900 objects to Costa Rica in 2011, and 1300 in 2021, they did so without having received a formal request from the Costa Rican government or undergoing any judicial processes. These objects were looted by the 19th-centruy American business tycoon, Cooper Keith, who traded in ancient American artifacts prior to the passage of a 1938 law restricting their export from Costa Rica. While his antiquities trading was “legal” on paper, the Brooklyn Museum’s restitution signals a recognition that legality and morality are often misaligned.

The nature of these repatriations is complicated by the political and social structures of countries and communities. The question of who should receive returning artifacts is not an easy one to answer. Indigenous communities and politicians have been known to disagree. For example, the return of a feathered cloak belonging to the Tupinambá people was met with praise from both indigenous and political leaders. This cloak is believed to have been taken to Europe by the Dutch around 1644, before their expulsion from Brazil by Portuguese colonizers, and Tupinambá leaders were unaware of its existence until a temporary exhibition brought it to Sāo Paulo in 2000.

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There is disagreement over the final location of this cloak. While the national Museum of Denmark formally gifted the cloak to the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, indigenous leaders believe it should return to Ilhéus, in the region of Bahia, and to the Tupinambá Olivença in Bahia, from whom it was taken. The president of Brazil voiced support for this by saying that the cloak’s location at the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro should be seen as a “temporary,” but a representative of the museum said that the museum was gifted the object “on a permanent basis,” and has not received any requests for transfer.

10 similar cloaks of equal cultural importance remain in museums outside of Brazil. Thee National Museum in Rio de Janeiro says that there are no current efforts to bring these objects home, but Chief Jamopoty of the Tupinambá Olivença in Bahia says that other museums “must return what rightfully belongs to us. Our heritage strengthens our identity.”

This, of course, raises questions about the proper handling of objects taken from other colonized communities and countries. The Dutch recognized that, though Brazil lacked legal justification for requesting the return of this object, it was the ethical path to take. Similar instances of cultural dispossession have occurred throughout South and Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Colonial loot is still displayed in museums throughout the countries of formal colonizers. Will they follow Denmark’s example?

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1. The Louvre Heist

I have to start off with the Louvre heist. Brilliant? Or amateur and sloppy? It depends on who you ask.

On October 19, 2025 a group of men disguised as construction workers broke into the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre and stole nine pieces of the French Crown Jewels in a brazen daytime heist, dropping during their escape. It’s the stuff of movies! Yet it happened in Paris, and the jewels have yet to be recovered.

In under ten minutes the thieves used a vehicle-mounted lift to extend a ladder up to the gallery window, broke through the exterior window, and employed power tools to gain access to display cases and snatch the irreplaceable artifacts. Accomplices waited outside and whisked the thieves and the jewels away on motor scooters. The team who completed the theft comprised of four individuals, and French police have made a number of arrests so far.

The thieves had done their homework. They targeted a gallery with an accessible exterior window and weakened security, bringing power tools to cut through the bulletproof display cases. While the vehicle-mounted lift slowed their entrance and escape, the individuals who entered the Apollo Gallery were in and out of the building in under four minutes.

The ease with which the thieves made off with the artifacts has led to critiques of the Louvre’s security apparatus. Labor unions representing the security staff have criticized the shrinking number of guards in comparison to the growing number of tourists. France’s Court of Arbiters critiqued the continued delay in security updates of France museums writ large, with the Louvre spending increasing amounts on art acquisitions without a comparable increase in security measures.

The value of the theft is estimated to be around €88 million, or $102 million. Thefts of this magnitude are rare, as objects of this and comparable value cannot be sold on the open market. The thieves likely stole the objects for one of two reasons:

1. They already had a buyer lined up. This is the best case scenario, and the jewels are likely to remain relatively unharmed in an illicit private collection. At some point, potentially decades from now, they will resurface.

2. They want to disassemble the artifacts and sell them for parts. This is, unfortunately, a common motive in jewel heists. In their last known form, the jewels are unsellable. But the raw materials (the gold, diamonds, pearls, and other jewels) carry significant value and the thieves stand to make a heft profit if they melt down the metals and sell the gems.

The Louvre was far from the only museum to experience shocking thefts in recent years. In France alone, thieves stole three pieces of Chinese porcelain worth and estimated €9.5 million from the the Adrien Dubouché institute in Limoges in September. On a more hopeful note, five bejeweled snuffboxes stolen in 2024 from Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris were recovered in October of 2025. In spite of arresting four suspects, neither the French nor international law enforcement agencies have recovered the jewels.

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2. The Drents Museum Heist

In January, the Drents Museum in Assen, the Netherlans was robbed. Thieves stole the gold Coțofenești helmet and three Dacian royal bracelets. Around 3:45 in the morning the assailants used an explosive device to gain access to the museum. Armed with a duffle bag, a crowbar, and flashlights they entered the Drents Museum and stole the four artifacts. The estimated value of the theft is around €6 million.

Officials have made a number of arrests. One suspect was caught on camera purchasing a sledgehammer at a hardware store, which officials suspect is the same sledgehammer used in the robbery. Additionally, DNA evidence was recovered from the scene, along with bags containing gold and glass particles, likely from the objects and their display cases.

Much like the Louvre heist, the thieves could have stolen these items for a particular collector or their raw materials. Dutch businessman Alex van Breeman has offered a reward for tips leading to their safe return, raising it from an original offer of €100,000 to €250,000 ($284,870 USD) in February. Additionally, Dutch prosecutors have gathered evidence suggesting that, as of August 2025, the objects had not been melted down or otherwise destroyed. Time will tell if they survive intact.

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3. Nazi Loot Uncovered in an Argentine Real-Estate Ad

In a slight topic-shift from recent thefts to historic ones, we have another movie-worthy story!

In August, the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) reported that a missing 18th-century portrait was spotted in an photograph for a real-estate listing in Argentina. Portrait of a Lady by Italian artist Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi was owned by the Amsterdam-based Jewish art dealer, Jacques Goudstikker1 before he died while fleeing the Nazis in 1940. The parts of his collection in Nazi-occupied territories were sold within weeks, with Hermann Göring purchasing a majority of the works. After WWII, over 200 works from Goudstikker’s collection remained in the Rijkmuseum until their restitution to his daughter-in-law and sole heir, Marei von Saher, in 2006.

According to records uncover by AD, documentation suggested that Portrait of a Lady was in the possession of SS Officer and close associate of Hermann Göring, Friedrich Kadgien, at the end of the war. Kadgien left Germany for Switzerland and eventually Argentina via Brazil, where his family remains to this day. The photograph above shows the painting hanging in the living room of a home belonging to one of Kadigan’s daughters, Patricia Kadgien.

After AD published the story, Argentine police raided multiple properties belonging to Patricia Kadgien and her husband to no avail. For a short period of time, the painting had yet again disappeared. Kadgien was placed under house arrest and the Argentine police conducted raids on multiple properties owner by Patricia Kadgien and her sister, seizing multiple other works of art in these raids, but not Portrait of a Lady. Eventually, Patricia Kadgien and her husband returned the painting voluntarily, though not before being placed on house arrest under suspicion of hiding the painting from officials. All the while, researchers at the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art uncovered additional potentially-looted works in Patricial Kadgien’s Facebook photos. Some of these appear to have ended up at the the Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo in Buenos Aires, where they remain today.

Originally, Portrait of a Lady was listed as “unreturned” by the Dutch government, but its current status is now listed as “not applicable.” Jacques Goudstikker’s heir has made a formal restitution claim at the FBI’s New York office and the case remains ongoing.

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4. Heritage Under Attack: Gaza and Ukraine

The fall of Assad in Syria brought with it a decline in Syrian antiquities with dubious provenance–or none at all–popping up on the antiquities market. Yet the world continues to turn and human beings continue to maim, torture, and kill each other in war, bringing with it devastation to local and global cultural heritage. While this is a roundup of stories from 2025, both the Gaza Genocide and the war in Ukraine began before the start of 2025.

In the Gaza Genocide, Israel does not limit itself to the killing of human beings. The Israeli government is actively partaking in cultural genocide through the destruction of heritage sites, museum repositories, and heritage professionals.

Human beings have lived in the Gaza strip since the late Neolithic period, and it served as an important locus for trade between Europe and Eurasia throughout much of history. There are hundreds of sites of archaeological significance within the Gaza strip, and multiple museums and repositories for cultural heritage. Using satellite imagery and rapid on-site assessments when possible, UNESCO has verified damage to 145 sites of cultural significance in Gaza since October 2023, while the Arab Regional Group at the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) puts the number at more than 200.

According to International Council of Museums-Arab (ICOM-Arab), two of Gaza’s four museums have been completely leveled: The Rafah Museum and Al Qarara Museum (also known as the Khan Younis Museum). Al Qarara Museum contained 3,500 objects of archaeological, historical, and cultural significance. It was hit by Israeli airstrikes in 2023, and again in August of 2024. According to a report by PEN America, a staff member reporting in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 attacks said that the majority of its collection was destroyed, though a 2024 Facebook post by museum staff indicates that they saved a significant number of objects. As with any conflict zone, it is difficult to obtain accurate data.

After the Great Omari Mosque and its library were destroyed by an airstrike in December 2023, a Palestinian restoration team from Gaza’s Ministry of Religious Endowments went to work rescuing manuscripts. As of October 2025, they have recovered 123 out of 228 manuscripts and 78 manuscript fragments. In addition to the destruction wrought by Israeli forces, the manuscripts were also damaged due to mold and moisture while buried under the rubble awaiting re-excavation. A small silver lining lies in the digitization of these manuscripts by HMML prior to October 2023.

The ideological underpinning of this cultural violence is a far-right belief that Palestinians and Palestine do not constitute a historically distinct ethnicity or peoplehood, and that Palestinians are inherently inferior to Jews. The destruction of Palestinian heritage serves to both undermine contemporary Palestinian identity, and disrupt historical continuity in order to support the historical claims and political goals of the far right in Israel. The intentional destruction and theft of Palestinian heritage is part of a larger far-right project intent on erasing Palestinian identity and culture. The most recent assault on Gaza is more severe in scale and intent than any previous attack, marking a horrific moment in Palestinian history.

Russia is engaged in a similar attack on Ukrainian identity through the large-scale theft and destruction of Ukrainian cultural heritage. This is part of Moscow’s long-term goal of suppressing Ukrainian national identity through a brutal campaign of russification. This war is not merely about territory, according to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin, but “an organised (sic) outrage against the nation’s collective memory.” Russian troops have looted and destroyed thousands of art and objects of cultural significance. Some of these works are now appearing in Russian museums, and museums in occupied Crimea.

Much like the Monuments Men and Women of WWII, Ukrainian officials evacuated many works early in the war, and their current locations remain a secret. Yet immovable heritage and provincial museums remain at particular risk and as of December 10, 2025, UNESCO has verified damage to 514 cultural sites in Ukraine.

International partners have stepped up when possible. The European Union launched its Team Europe initiative for Cultural Heritage in Ukraine in July, which recently published recommendations for establishing a Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Fund to combat the destruction wrought by Russia. Member states have also contributed a combined €50 million to support Ukraine’s cultural and creative sectors. In August of 2025, the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council hosted an event titled, Examining Russia’s Assault on Ukraine’s Cultural Heritage. UNESCO has funded multiple programs in support of Ukrainian cultural heritage through their Heritage Emergency Fund and UNESCO-Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals.

Russia’s assault on Ukrainian identity stretches back centuries, as tsars and later emperors of Russia sought to promulgate an all-encompassing “Russian” identity throughout their territories. This impulse has taken on an almost mythic quality, as Putin and his ideological allies understand themselves to be the inheritors of both the Kyivan Rus’ and Byzantine civilizations, and entitled to the art and artifacts of these civilizations throughout modern-day Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere in eastern Europe.

Many Palestinians and non-Palestinians working to protect and preseve cultural heritage in Gaza have rightly noted the divergent reactions from the international community toward heritage destruction in Gaza and Ukraine. In comparison to Ukraine, international organizations have been slow to act in protection of Gaza’s heritage. Part of this is due to Israel’s refusal to allow international journalists or heritage professionals into the Gaza strip. Yet the refusal of some organizations and most governments to speak or act stands in stark comparison to the rallying of of the international community around Ukraine’s efforts to protect and reclaim their heritage. While European countries piled sanctions onto Russia and Russian oligarchs, it took months and sometimes years to initiate sanctions against Israeli figures, let alone Israel as a country.

There are notable and laudable exceptions to this trend. A French NGO called Première Urgence Internationale has been working to preserve Palestinian cultural heritage since 2017 through its Intiqal initiative. When Israel alerted them to the imminent bombing of the the storage facility of the French Biblical and Archaeological School (EBAF) in Gaza City, they were able to assist Geneva Museum of Art and History and other organizaitons in the relocation of 80% of the objects. This only occurred after negotiations between France, UNESCO, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and Israeli authorities to grant a brief reprieve from fighting to evacuate objects.

While I can tell the other stories on this list with an air of brevity, the horrors that Russia and Israel continue to inflict on the Ukrainian and Palestinian people refuses to permit such brevity. The total damage done to the heritage of Gaza and Ukraine is impossible to measure at the current moment. Additional documentation and data will allow us to assign a monetary value to these losses in the future, but this cannot adequately capture nor rectify the damage done to the Ukrainian and Palestinian people.

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5. UNESCO’s Virtual-Reality Museum of Looted Cultural Objects

A bit of hope to round out our 2025 list! In September of 2025, UNESCO launched their Virtual-Reality Museum of Looted Cultural Objects. This museum is “designed to vanish” once all these objects of immense cultural importance return to their rightful owners. For now, it is expanding as it records reported thefts, and the “Return and Restitution Room” tells stories of objects that have been returned to their communities of origin.

Designed to raise awareness of the illicit trafficking of cultural objects, UNESCO says that the scourge of illicit trafficking “deprives people of their history and culture” and weakens social ties and cohesion over the long-term. This initiative targets younger audiences in an effort to spread awareness of the crime among a population that might otherwise remain uninformed. Additionally, the initiative is designed to support member states as they work to combat looting and trafficking of cultural heritage within their borders and work to restitute or reclaim objects that have been lost.

The museum also serves as a digital repository of stolen objects. Using 2D and 3D technology to bring missing objects back into the public sphere, the museum allows people to engage with objects in the virtual world that are currently missing in the physical world.

For more on UNESCO’s work to combat the trafficking of cultural heritage, see their Illicit Trafficking Hub.

As we move into 2026, I remain alarmed by the rising tide of fascism in the world. While nationalistic impulses can motivate some groups to protect cultural heritage (I am looking at you, Turkey), more often than not it leads to the destruction of material heritage, communities, and human beings on the “wrong” side of nationalistic fervor.

While material greed was behind the flashy museum heists of 2025, they pale in comparison to scale of destruction in Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Somalia, and other conflict zones around the world. It is not greed, but ideological extremism and ethno-nationalism that currently pose the most risk to heritage around the globe.

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1. Germanisches Nationalmuseum returns Nazi-looted objects to heirs of the Lion Brothers.

After completing comprehensive provenance research on five objects, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg has returned five works to the descendants of German-Jewish art dealers the Lion Brothers. Louis, Hans and Fritz Lion were forced to give up their collection due to pressure from the National Socialist government.

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The museum has re-purchased one object at a “fair and reasonable price,” and it will remain accessible to the public at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. The object is a processional cross created in 1310 near Regensburg; it has art-historical significance due to the unusual presence of a crucified Christ painted on both sides.

The other objects include an 18th-century gilded vase and a six-paneled screen from the 19th-century. The heirs have praised the restitution process as honoring “the fate of the persecuted Lion brothers and represent[ing] an important act of historical justice in Nuremberg.”

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2. Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich returns painting purchased by Herman Göring in 1941.

The heirs of Ernst Magnus’ restitution claim for The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (c 1522–1525) was rejected in 2010. However, the newly instituted Court of Arbitration for Nazi-looted Cultural Property reevaluated this decision, and recently approved its restitution.

Originally from Hannover, Ernest Magnus fled to Switzerland to escape Nazi persecution. Due to the Jewish Property Levy and the Reich Flight Tax, he was forced to sell additional parts of his collection to fund his family’s visa application to Cuba. He consigned The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne to the Fischer Galerie in Lucerne 1940 and Herman Göring subsequently purchased it in 1941 through the dealer Walter Andreas Hofer. The painting was recovered by Americans at the Munich Central Collecting Point after WWII, and eventually entrusted to the government of Bavaria before being transferred to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in 1961. In 2025, it returns to the Magnus family.

This case highlights the intricacies of conducting Nazi-era provenance research involving “flight assets” (Fluchtgut). Many persecuted people sold their collections in Switzerland due to Nazi pressure both before and during WWII. Yet art sales in Switzerland often fall outside of the scope of legal frameworks designed to address the restitution of Nazi-looted property. Recent innovations in international legal frameworks, including the Court of Arbitration for Nazi-looted Cultural Property, are attempting to address these issues and create a more just system for the restitution and repatriation of Nazi-looted cultural heritage.

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3. The Vatical returns 62 objects to indigenous communities in Canada.

The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) recently negotiated the return of 62 cultural artifacts to indigenous communities in Canada. These negotiations began under Pope Francis in 2017, and reached their conclusion this month under Pope Leo XIV.

These objects include a rare Inuit sealskin kayak, and a set of embroidered gloves from the Cree Nation.

Most of these objects were seized from indigenous communities and removed to Europe in the early 20th Century. At this time, Canadian law and Catholic canon law prohibited the practice of “native spiritual practices” and banned certain ceremonial objects. During this period, indigenous children were also taken from their communities and forced into residential schools, where they experienced abuse, forced conversion, and death.

Originally part of the Vatican Museums’ ethnographic collection, Anima Mundi, Pope Leo XIV gifted the artifacts to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops for immediate transfer to their respective indigenous communities. This gesture is meant to continue the Catholic Church’s reconciliation for the horrors done to indigenous people at residential schools in Canada.

In a joint statement, Pope Leo XIV and the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said they hope this action “represent[s] a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity.”

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4. US Senate unanimously passes the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2025.

The Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2015 addressed legal barriers in the United States relating to the restitution of property looted or spoliated by the Nazi government, such as state-based statutes of limitations. It is set to expire in 2026, and the US Senate unanimously passed the HEAR Act of 2025 to extend these provisions. The HEAR Act of 2025 now heads to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass, and then to the desk of President Trump to sign into law.

The HEAR Act of 2025 strengthens the provisions set out in the 2015 HEAR Act, and clarifies some additional roadblocks. Under the 2015 Act, there is a federal six-year statute of limitations from the date a plaintiff discovers certain aspects of their claim, rather than divergent state-based statutes of limitations that could begin at the time of theft, or the time of discovery. Additionally, this 2025 act eliminates the ‘international comity’ doctrine, which allows US Courts to decline to hear cases involving foreign nationals or foreign legal decisions.

Organizations working to restitute stolen Jewish property, such as the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) and Art Ashes, have applauded the move saying it will “assist Holocaust survivors and their families who are seeking the return of artwork now held in museums and collections across the United States.”

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5. Rothschild family to sell restituted 15th Century mahzor.

A 15th Century mahzor, or prayerbook for the Jewish High Holidays, is set to be sold at Sotheby’s in 2026. It is expected to fetch between $5 and $7 million.

The Rothschild Vienna Mahzor is a parchment manuscripts created in 1415, and contains the prayer services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, along with various illuminations throughout. Little is known about its creation and history before Salomon Mayer von Rothschild purchased it in Nuremberg as a gift for his son in 1842.

The mahzor remained in the possession of the Austrian branch of the Rothschild family until 1938, when the Nazis forcibly confiscated the collections of the Vienna branch of the family. Soon after the war, the Rothschild family recovered parts of their collection. A change in Austria’s restitution laws in 1999 led to an additional wave of restitutions in the early 2000s. Without bearing any physical signs of its confiscation and unbeknownst to the Rothschild family, the Rothschild Vienna Mahzor remained at the Austrian National Library for decades.

Its existence came to light in 2021, when the Jewish Museum in Vienna mounted an exhibitions called, “The Vienna Rothschilds: A Thriller.” For this exhibition, the Austrian National Library loaned them this mahzor, and the descendants of Alphonse and Clarice Rothschild requested its restitution. Following additional provenance research, the Austrian National Library agreed to voluntarily restitute the book in 2023. It will be actioned by the heirs at Sotheby’s New York on February 5, 2026 and experts hope the buyer will make it accessible to the scholarly community as well as the public.

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6. Ukraine publishes list of art looted by Russia from the O. Shovkunenko Kherson Regional Art Gallery in Kherson.

A little over three years ago, Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson from Russian occupation. Since then, heritage professionals have worked to identify the works of art stolen from the O. Shovkunenko Kherson Regional Art Gallery as part of Russia’s strategic attacks on Ukraine’s national and cultural identity.

On the third anniversary of Ukraine’s recapture and liberation of the city, the Ukrainian government has published a list of over 1000 objects illegally stolen or destroyed by Russian forces. After their initial theft in 2022, Ukrainian authorities believe they were removed to Crimea. It is unclear where all of the objects are now, though some are at the Simferopol Central Museum of Tavrida.

These objects include sculptures, paintings, drawings, and religious icons. View the complete list of objects stolen from Kherson here.

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7. Manhattan DA’s Office announces the return of 43 objects to Turkey.

On December 10, 2025 Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Jr. announced the return of 43 objects looted from the ancient city of Bubon in modern-day Turkey. This is the most recent repatriation in an ongoing investigation into the systemic plunder of Bubon by an international smuggling network.

These objects include 41 ancient polychrome terracotta relief fragments from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a Byzantine capital with bust of the Archangel Michael (1250-1300) and a marble head of Demosthenes (2nd century CE) from the MET.

In the 1960s, individuals began looting ancient shrines in and around Bubon and selling these antiquities to traffickers in the Izmir area. Known traffickers George Zakos and Robert Hecht assisted in smuggling these objects out of Turkey via Switzerland and the UK where they were sold to buyers in the US and Europe. Through officials at the Royal-Athena Galleries and the Merrin Gallery, the traffickers were able to craft provenance narratives and launder the objects into the open market, where they ended up in both private and public collections.

Objects trafficked from Bubon have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Worcester Museum of Art, and the Fordham Museum of Art.

Previous repatriations of objects looted from Bubon occurred in March and September of 2023, 2024, and earlier in 2025.

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1. Update on Ghislandi painting discovered in Argentine real estate advertisement

We have been following the story of the rediscovered Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Ghislandi since August. After internet sleuths alerted authorities to its presence in a real estate advertisement, the painting disappeared for a short period of time before its owner, the daughter of a Nazi SS officer, surrendered it to Argentine authorities. In September, Patricia Kadgien and her husband were charged with “aggravated concealment” for attempting to hide the painting’s whereabouts. The couple insists that they were unaware of the painting’s illicit provenance, and did not intentionally hide it but removed the photo from the advertisement and the painting from the wall due to harassment. The case is working its way through the courts.

Recently, Reuters published the story of Paul Post, a Dutch retiree whose father, Will Post, worked as a diamond trader near Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. In 2010, Post rediscovered his father’s diaries from this period, which contain an account of the 1942 diamond confiscation in which traders were forced to hand over their precious stones. From there, Post began researching the Nazi looting of Amsterdam’s diamonds in the Netherlands’ national archives. Cyril Rosman worked with Paul Post and broke this story in the Dutch newspaper, Algemeen Dagblad.

What began as an exercise in family history and diamond crime quickly grew. Again and again, he came across the name Friedrich Kadgien, a Nazi officer tasked with overseeing the looting of diamonds and gold in occupied territories. In hopes of tracking down lost diamonds, Post began researching Kadgien’s movements after the war. While no diamonds were uncovered, Post managed to trace Kadgien through Switzerland and eventually to Argentina.

In 2020, Post discovered that the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands believed Friedrich Kadgien owned looted art, including Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Ghislandi. Over the years, both Post and Rosman made repeated, unsuccessful attempts to contact Kadgien’s heirs and inquire about both diamonds and art. Rosman eventually hired a Buenos Aires-based freelance journalist named Peter Schouten to visit Patricia Kadgien’s home. This visit would prove pivotal.

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Schouten noted a for-sale sign in the front yard of Kadgien’s property. While checking the online advertisement for this property, he was shocked to see Portrait of a Lady hanging prominently in the living room. Since this discovery, the Connecticut-based heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, who owned the painting at the time of its acquisition by Kadgien, have filed a claim on the painting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Argentine authorities have searched four properties connected to Patricia Kadgien and recovered additional works of art, including 22 prints believed to be from a first edition of Henri Matisse’s Seize peintures 1939-1943 and a missing still-life by Abraham Mignon (for more on this, see the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art’s excelledn investigative work here). Authorities are currently working to sort out which works were also looted by the Nazis.

Patricia Kadgien maintains that she legally owns the painting, claiming that her father’s sister-in-law purchased it from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne in 1943. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum denies that the painting was ever part of their collection.

The serendipity of this story reveals the complexities of Nazi-era provenance research. Without Post’s retirement and the time it gave him to research his family history, his father safeguarding his diary for decades, or Patricia Kadgien listing her house, none of this would likely have come to light.

The four raids on Kadgien properties did not recover any jewels, but Paul Post remains committed to uncovering information about the missing diamonds. Read more about his work here.

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2. Missing Roman funerary inscription discovered in New Orleans backyard

Daniella Santoro and her husband, Aaron Lorenz, were clearing the undergrowth in the yard of their historic home at 1106 Cambronne Street in New Orleans when they came across a peculiar object. Buried under the weeds was a flat marble stone bearing a Latin inscription. Worried they may have uncovered a forgotten cemetery, the couple contacted local Anthropology professor and member of the Louisiana Slavery and Ancestral Burial Grounds Commission, Dr. Ryan Gray.

Given the location, Gray deduced that the object was probably not from a historic New Orleans cemetery. Working from the Latin inscription, Santoro contacted Dr. Susann S. Lusnia, an Associate Professor of Classical Studies at Tulane. Dr. Lusnia confirmed that this was a Roman funerary inscription for a sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus. Even more shocking: a stone with this exact inscription and dimensions had been reported missing from the city museum in Civitavecchia, Italy. All parties agreed: the stone should return to its rightful owners.

The group began with contacting the city museum in Civitavecchia and consulting with Tess Davis at the Antiquities Coalition. They then contacted the FBI’s Art Crime Team, who agreed to take custody oof the stone while the repatriation process moves forward.

While their research has not uncovered the precise path this stone took from Civitavecchia to New Orleans, they have a theory. The city museum in Civitavecchia was heavily bombed during WWII, and many items from its collection remain lost. There is a 1954 inventory listing this stone, but Dr. Lusnia’s research concluded that the inventory was not created from first-hand observations, but from earlier documentation. This makes it possible–and perhaps likely–that the stone was removed from the museum in the chaos of WWII.

There is no evidence to tie the twentieth-century owners of the home to Italy. While the next-door neighbor served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he was only ever stationed in the Pacific region. However, the 34th division of the Fifth Army of the U.S. travelled through Civitavecchia after liberating Rome in 1944. They theorize that an American soldier acquired the stone at this time, and placed it in this yard sometime after returning to America. Equally plausible is that the person who removed this inscription from Italy kept it for some time before it was placed in the yard–perhaps passing it down to their children who eventually placed it there. At this point, it is impossible to know. What we do know is that this inscription, lost for over 75 years, is finally returning home.

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3. UNESCO launches first-ever virtual-reality museum of looted cultural objects

At UNESCO’s World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development in Barcelona last month, the organization launched the first-ever virtual-reality museum of stolen cultural objects. The UNESCO Museum of Stolen Cultural Objects (MSCO) aims to “protect the world’s common heritage and fight against the looting and illicit trafficking of cultural property.”

After UN member states called for a more coordinated strategy to raise awareness around the illicit trafficking of cultural heritage, UNESCO began working on a digital museum of looted heritage. The museum is now live, offering a powerful tool for education, transparency, and international cooperation.

In the “Return and Restitution Room,” viewers can explore the provenance stories of objects, learning how they were taken, who helped recover them, and what steps were involved in returning them to their rightful homes. One such object is the fossil of a trilobite, a marine arthropod from the Devonian period, which was repatriated to Morocco in 2024.

Due to their rarity, it is illegal to export trilobite fossils from Morocco. Between 2018–2022, Chilean officials seized 117 fossils originating in Morocco, including multiple trilobites. After Moroccan authorities confirmed that this fossil was exported illegally and belongs to Morocco’s “protected geological patrimony,” Chile initiated its repatriation.

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Many objects highlighted in the MSCO remain missing. The museum gives member states an immersive platform to educate the public about their missing heritage, and expound on the communal grief that heritage loss causes. Additionally, the virtual format allows a global audience to engage with these stories from around the world, reinforcing the importance of cultural heritage and the global effort to protect it from trafficking and theft.

4. Heritage professionals in Gaza begin to rebuild

After two years of fighting and genocide, which killed over 64,000 Palestinians, there is a tentative ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. In those two years, nearly 55% of Gaza’s heritage sites were damaged or destroyed.

One such site is the fourth-century Monastery of Saint Hilarion, one of the largest and earliest known monasteries in the Middle East. St. Hilarion of Gaza, a fourth-century ascetic dubbed the “founder of Palestinian Monasticism” by Jerome, founded this monastic center in the fourth century. Within it are churches, accommodations for monks, a baptistry, chapel, and crypt. Through international funding, a shelter and aerial walkways were installed in 2022 allowing for visitors to view the site. Before the war, it was an education hub training future Palestinian archaeologists and serving as a destination for school field trips.

The Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has held meetings with local and international partners to formulate a plan for heritage reconstruction in Gaza. The first step is to update their preliminary damage assessment, which was completed during the last ceasefire, before beginning emergency conservation efforts. They estimate it will cost around $192 million USD.

Like many, Palestinian archaeology graduate Leena Majed Yassin hopes that this ceasefire will be permanent and allow for holistic reconstruction of Palestinian society, saying, “When I speak of reconstruction, I don’t mean only stone and cement, I mean rebuilding the human being. Because what has been destroyed inside people may be harder to repair than the walls that have fallen.”

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5. Jewelry heist at the Louvre

France’s Culture Minister has described the Sunday morning theft of priceless Napoleonic jewels as a “professional operation.” In just seven minutes thieves broke into the Galerie d’Apollon, which housed the French crown jewels, and made off with eight items valued at an estimated $102 million. These items include Empress Eugénie’s large corsage-bow brooch, reliquary diamond brooch, and her diamond and pearl tiara. The empress’ crown was found damaged outside of the museum. Additionally, thieves stole a sapphire and diamond set worn by Queen Hortense, Queen Marie-Amélie and Isabelle of Orléans, and an emerald necklace and earrings belonging to Marie-Louise of Austria.

Using a forklift to reach the window, the thieves broke into the gallery and escaped with the priceless artifacts in under seven minutes. In their hasty escape, they dropped the crown of Empress Eugénie, damaging it but ultimately allowing authorities to recover the item outside the museum.

In my view, there are three potential motivations for this theft.

1. Collateral or leverage. A large criminal organization or wealthy individual ordered the heist to obtain collateral for a loan involving illicit activity, or to use as leverage in potential legal negotiations.

2. Theft-to-order. A wealthy collector may have financed the heist in order to obtain items for their private collection.

3. Resell value of raw materials. The thieves might melt down the precious metals and remove gems for their settings and cut them to erase their provenance. This allows them to sell the metal and stones on the grey or open market.

The third option appears to be the most likely, as jewelry alone was targeted. For this reason, experts and I are cynical about the jewels’ recovery. Unless the thieves are apprehended quickly, it is unlikely the public will see these objects anytime soon—or ever again.

For more on this story, see the BBC coverage here.

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For more on the intersection of art and organized crime, see the work of Donna Yates.

One of these gems was 1986.17.2, an intaglio (meaning the image was incised into the stone, creating a concave image) acquired from Ambassador and Mrs. William L. Eagleton, Jr., the former American ambassador to Syria (among other places) and his wife. We have no provenance beyond this, which is particularly sad given its iconography.

1986.17.2 depicts a four-horse-drawn chariot and likely dates from the first or second century CE. This composition is called a quadriga in art historical terms and often depicted the Sun God, Sol Invictus, the goddess of Victory, Nike, or an emperor as steering the chariot during this period of history.

There is a third-century mosaic in the Tomb of the Julii beneath Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome that might depict Jesus as Sol Invictus (see image above). The identification of this as Jesus is, in part, due to the biblical tales depicted around it.

If we knew the find-spot of 1986.17.2, we might have a better idea of the figure it was meant to depict. Could it be Sol Invictus? Nike? Jesus? This information is now lost to the vicissitudes of history.

In addition to 1986.17.2, I was able to view other gems acquired from Ambassador Eagleton: 1986.17.1, 1986.17.21, 1986.17.22, 1986.17.25, 1986.17.27, and 1986.17.30.

Each has iconography and material aspects that their provenience (find-spot) and archaeological context could inform. I will highlight some of these stories below.

1986.17.1 is stunning for a number of reasons. The stone is sardonyx, a relatively sturdy gemstone with banded coloration, which you can see on the beveled edges in the photograph above. The beveled edges indicate that it was likely set in a ring, though the fate of its original setting is unknown. Its octagonal shape is also highly unusual, with very few published gems exhibiting the same shape.

Without archaeological context, there is very little we can say about these idiosyncrasies. Was it found near other, similarly shaped gems? Perhaps among other examples of sardonyx stones? Was it found in a ring setting that its excavator (in all likelihood, its looter) deemed insignificant or low-quality? Or was it loose in a workshop, surrounded by other gemstones? Did these gemstones depict Eros as well? Again, this information is lost.

In a pleasant turn of events, Yale does have some gems with secure and documented provenance from Dura-Europos. One of these is 1938.2394, a white agate stone preserved in an ancient silver setting.

This stone originates from the Yale-French Excavations at Dura-Europos. Based on the context of its discovery as one of 26 intaglios, scholars are able to tell us more about this stone than those lacking provenance. For example, the convex shape of the stone was unusual, with most stones from Dura being flat.

Its iconography shows a male figure holding a long staff and a round object. Given the presence of similar iconography on intaglios at Dura, scholars can tentatively identify this ambiguous iconography as a scepter and a cup for libations. Additionally, the presence of a temple to Jupiter Dolichenus at Dura also allows scholars to tentatively identify the figure as Jupiter.

Damage to the bottom of the stone directly under the figure suggests that it may have been placed in a prior setting before being damaged during removal and re-set into this silver ring. The use of silver is informative, as the use of silver for ring settings grew in popularity in the second and third centuries.

Another stone from Dura, 1929.405, depicts similar iconography but is set within a silver bracelet rather than a ring. This object was excavated along with a hoard of coins near the Palmyrene Gate on the western wall of Dura-Europos. The style of this setting indicates a third-century date, and the presence of third-century coins in the hoard confirms this. However, this style of gemstone engraving was popular in the second century as well, so the stone itself could be earlier.

The above examples give a small insight into how the provenience and archaeological context of these gemstones add to our scholarly knowledge.

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The issues highlighted by Ambassador Eagleton’s collecting habits are far from novel. The size and portability of Roman gemstones, much like ancient coins, make them popular among collectors.

In 2007, the leading expert in the study of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine gems and current Senior Curator of Antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum the first comprehensive catalogue of all known engraved gems of the late antique period. This is an invaluable resource for scholars interested in the field of ancient gemstones, but it also proved useful to a less scrupulous crowd: forgers.

Since 2007, forgeries imitating the gems pictured in this text have flooded the market. With the lack of provenance for most legitimate Roman gemstones, it can be difficult to identify a well-executed forgery. In addition to the scholarly value that provenience and provenance writ large provide to the scholarly community, it is also valuable for institutions and collectors who want to authenticate their acquisitions and avoid forgeries.

How then should scholars approach the authentication and publication of such gemstones? In the world of papyri, professional associations have published guidelines instructing scholars to refrain from publishing unprovenanced papyri. Would a similar strategy be advised here? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

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Nota bene: Here are some additional photographs from my recent viewing of the gemstones. Photos are my own unless otherwise noted.

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Researchers at the Monuments Men and Women Foundation believe they have discovered two Nazi-looted paintings in a sale of unclaimed items from safety deposit boxes in Ohio.

The two floral still-life paintings are believed to be the work of Dutch painter Ambrosius Bosschaert, one of the first artists to specialize in flowers as the subject of still-life paintings.

The Monuments Men and Women Foundation believes these paintings belonged to the Adolphe Schloss Collection before World War II. This collection was targeted by the Nazis, who succeeded in seizing it in 1943. Of the 333 paintings, 262 were sent to the Führerbau, or Leader’s Building, and marked for inclusion in Hitler’s proposed Führermuseum in Linz, Austria. The two Bosschaert paintings were then stolen from the Führerbau in 1945.

There is a mountain of evidence to suggest that these two paintings are indeed from the Adolphe Schloss Collection. In addition to the striking similarities to archival photos, the measurements of the two paintings in Ohio match those in the Schloss records. Additionally, a German inventory of the Schloss Collection listed two Bosschaert paintings as numbers 16 and 17, and these two paintings have “S-16” and “S-17” inscribed on their backs.

Once the Monuments Men and Women Foundation alerted the auction house facilitating this sale, Apple Tree Auction Center, they halted the sale. If they can be authenticated, the paintings will likely be returned to the Schloss family heirs in the near future.

2. Painting in Belgium Parliament returning to Germany.

A German painting seized by Belgium’s Sequestration Service after WWII is set to return to Germany.

The Belgian Parliament owns around 2,500 works of art, the majority of which are Belgian in origin. One of these was a painting by Friedrich von Nerly, seized from the German Embassy by the Sequestration Service in the immediate aftermath of WWII.

The Sequestration Service office seized and managed the property of enemy companies, governments, and individuals. Hundreds of works the Belgian government seized were subsequently auctioned off. However, there is no record that this painting was ever on the art market after WWII. Rather, it appears to have remained under the stewardship of the Government of Belgium since its seizure.

According to Belgium Federal Parliament’s curator, Sophie Wittemans, the painting “is no longer German property due to the forfeiture. But because the Chamber sets an example, we will return it to the museum at the end of this month.”

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3. Excavators race to save Gazan artifacts ahead of Israeli airstrike.

This week, officials raced to carry out a last-minute and high-risk operation to evacuate 30 years worth of archaeological finds from a storehouse in Gaza City that was under imminent threat of an Israeli airstrike.

This operation required the cooperation of France, UNESCO, and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem to secure a short reprieve in order to evacuate materials. Given the limited resources and lack of infrastructure in Gaza after two years of war and genocide, this was no easy task.

The Gaza genocide has devastated Gaza’s museums and cultural heritage sites, which include UNESCO World Heritage Sites such as the Monastery of Saint Hilarion. The French Biblical and Archaeological School of Jerusalem’s (EBAF) storehouse is one of the last significant repositories of cultural objects left in Gaza. While participants could not save everything, their efforts preserved a significant amount of heritage that would otherwise be lost.

With the possibility of a ceasefire seeming farther and farther away, the future of Gaza’s cultural heritage remains in a precarious spot.

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4. “Jean-Pierre, we have a new Rubens!”

French auctioneer Jean-Pierre Osenat discovered a long-lost Peter Paul Rubens painting while preparing an estate sale in Paris last year.

The painting is a striking image of Jesus’ Crucifixion, painted by the Old Master in 1613. Since its discovery, German art historian Nils Büttner has authenticated the work, and X-ray imaging and pigment analysis have further solidified its authenticity.

The painting will be auctioned off on November 30.

A quick announcement:
The Weekly Roundup is moving to every other week during the semester.
As you know, I am a PhD student. I do not feel like I have the time or space to write this well if I am writing it every single week.

Thank you all for understanding, and please do drop a comment with your favorite of the above stories!

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For the past few weeks, the story of a Nazi-looted painting showing up in a real estate advertisement in Argentina has gripped the artsy side of the internet. In a delightfully swift turn of events, the descendants of Nazi officer Friedrich Kadgien handed the painting over to Argentine authorities this week and filed a petition to maintain ownership of the work.

Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker owned Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Ghislandi until his death in 1940 while fleeing the Nazis. This painting is one of over 1,000 works from his collection believed to have been looted by the Nazis, and Goudstikker’s heirs say they plan to reclaim the painting.

For more on this story, check out my Weekly Roundup from August 31, 2025.

2. Association for Research into Crimes Against Art uncovers another looted painting in Argentina.

After the Kadgien story broke, Lynda Albertson and Alice Bientinesi at the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA) began investigating the social media activity of Friedrich Kadgien’s heirs. In doing so, they believe they have uncovered additional Nazi loot in Argentina’s Museo de Arte Decorativo.

They believe that a painting shown in a Facebook photo published by Patricia Kadgien in 2011 is, in fact, Bloemstilleven (Flowers Still Life) by Abraham Mignon (1640–1679), a painting listed as missing by the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed.

This painting is now at the Museo de Arte Decorativo. After utilizing a digital overlay technique, Albertson and Bientinesi have little doubt that the painting in Patricia Kadgien’s Facebook photo is the same one in Museo de Arte Decorativo.

Additionally, when one compares a 2020 photograph of the ‘Ruysch-named’ painting at the museum with a lower-quality photo of the missing work, it is clear that they are the same painting.

This raises a number of important questions. If it is the same painting, how did the Museo de Arte Decorativo acquire it? How was its presence on the Netherlands’ list of missing works overlooked during the acquisition process? Does this point to a more systemic ignoring of Nazi-looted works in Argentina, where many Nazi officials settled after the war? Leave your thoughts in a comment below.

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3. Civil war in Sudan puts heritage at risk.

Since the civil war erupted in Sudan in 2023, cultural heritage institutions have been devastated. A new organization hopes to change that and shift the way international actors address heritage crimes.

Supported by ICCROM, UNESCO, and FAR (First Aid and Resilience for Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis), Ali Nour and other heritage professionals began organizing an emergency response to document, protect, and recover cultural heritage in Sudan. They called their project Blue Shield Sudan, now listed as a National Committee Under Construction by Blue Shield International.

Blue Shield Sudan is now calling for three urgent changes in the ways the international community addresses heritage crime:

1. Recognise cultural heritage professionals as frontline responders. They must be granted protective status under humanitarian law, entitled to safe corridors, security guarantees, and inclusion in emergency response protocols.

2. Embed rapid-response funds within national heritage institutions. Small, immediately accessible grants can determine whether a collection is packed or left behind. Timing is everything.

3. Centre local actors in every decision. Global plans fail without local knowledge. Those who know the terrain, the languages, the risks—and who have something to lose—must lead safeguarding efforts.

As Nour points out in her piece, heritage emergencies require an immediate response to prevent the irreparable loss of material heritage. If not addressed, the slow speed at which bureaucracies move will continue to rob the Sudanese people of their rich and ancient heritage.

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4. Former start of BBC’s Bargain Hunt

After Bonhams pulled a Roman bust from auction due to its ties with convicted antiquities trafficker Gianfranco Becchina, auctioneer and TV personality Tim Wonnacott is under fire for promoting its sale at another auction house.

Having appeared on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, Antiques Road Trip, and Bargain Hunt, as well as a stint as director of Sotheby’s, Tim Wonnacott is a well-known British auctioneer. As such, Dr. Christos Tsirogiannis thinks he should know better than to promote looted antiquities. Tsirogiannis has argued that the Roman bust of Emperor Hadrian was likely trafficked by Gianfranco Becchina and should be removed from auction.

The evidence he has put forth relies on the archives of Becchina that are not publicly available, and raises interesting provenance questions. What level of due-diligence is expected when incriminating evidence is difficult to find? Should we rely on mediators such as Tsirogiannis, or should we push for the digitization of these and similar archives?

To learn more about Becchina’s prolific trafficking, see Watson Peter, and Todeschini, Cecilia (2007), The Medici Conspiracy (New York: Public Affairs).

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5. Critics question the Manhattan D.A.’s aggressive approach to antiquities trafficking.

This one is less about a case and more a question: what is the just way to go about repatriation?

Since 2017, the Antiquities Trafficking Unit at the Manhattan D.A.’s Office has seized over 6,000 artifacts from collectors and institutions in the Northeast. Critics now argue that this could have negative ramifications for the art market in New York and deserves further scrutiny.

What are your thoughts on this article? Drop a comment below!

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Historic event or heritage crime? After the announcement that France will loan the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum in 2026, French historian Didier Rykner started a petition to stop the loan. So far, over 66,000 people have signed.

Rykner argues that any transportation of the tapestry risks “catastrophic damage” to the fragile 11th-century textile. Its fabric is weakened due to its current display being suspended from a rail rather than laying down on a flat surface. There are thousands of weak spots, made further vulnerable by the removal of the tapestry’s stabilizing lining in preparation for its storage while the museum undergoes renovations. A full restoration was planned for the tapestry prior to the museum’s reopening, and conservators are now voicing their dismay at the possibility of moving the tapestry while it is in such a state.

Even the president’s advisor for the project, Philippe Bélaval, stated that the tapestry is “untransportable”, yet the current government of France decided otherwise. In response to the government’s dismissal of experts concerned about the loan, Rykner said, “any artwork is transportable. The question is, in what condition will it arrive?”

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2. Trafficker foiled at JFK in 2019 goes to prison.

Five years ago, Ashraf Omar Eldarir attempted to smuggle over 500 Egyptian artifacts into the United States through John F. Kennedy Airport. This week, he was sentenced to six months in prison by American courts.

These objects included a Roman limestone relief (left) that later sold for $1,200, a terracotta figurine of Isis Aphrodite (middle), and an ancient polychrome fragment (right).

The US Attorney’s Office described Eldarir as a “prolific trafficker.” While attempting to smuggle these artifacts through customs, federal agents discovered a trove of evidence corroborating this statement. In addition to the artifacts themselves, Eldarir had with him supplies to forge customs documents. This included a trove of Egyptian government stamps from various periods in history, decades old Egyptian paper, and black-and-white photographs purporting to prove that the objects were excavated decades ago, and therefore legal to import and sell.

For years, Eldarir forged provenance documents and claimed that his grandfather left him a large collection of antiquities that had been removed from Egypt prior to 1948. If this claim were true, it would be legal to import the artifacts to the United States and sell them. However, the totality of the evidence points to a darker picture. For decades, Eldarir has been illegally excavating objects, or purchasing illegally excavated objects, and laundering them abroad with forged provenance documents in order to sell them for an exorbitant profit.

While brief, officials hope that his prison sentence will dissuade other traffickers.

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3. Nazi-looted painting spotted in Argentina disappears.

A realtor in Argentina accidentally featured a Nazi-looted painting by Giuseppe Ghislandi in their advertisement.

Portrait of a Lady by Giuseppe Ghislandi (also known as Fra Galgario) was owned by Jewish collector Jacques Goudstikker who died while fleeing Nazi persecution in 1940. His family later sold his collection of Old Masters paintings under duress and fled to the United States. Portrait of a Lady ended up in the possession of SS Officer Friedrich Kadgien, who eventually settled in Argentina after World War II. This painting was subsequently listed on the Lost Art Database, and had been missing for over 70 years.

This week, a relator working for the daughters of Friedrich Kadgien posted an advertisement for their home that featured this painting. A Dutch newspaper, Algemeen Dagblad, reported on the advertisement and attempted to contact the family. The family denied that they owned this painting, and the realtor quickly deleted the advertisement. As of August 31, the painting has not been recovered, but Argentinian officials announced that they will continue searching for it.

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4. France returns colonial-era human remains to Madagascar.

French colonial forces killed King Toera of Madagascar in 1897 and brought his remains along with the remains of others back to France. The skulls of these human beings were displayed at Paris’s National Museum of Natural History. In a bid to right historic wrongs, France is returning the remains.

France’s Culture Minister Rachida Dati described the presence of these remains in France as the result of “circumstances that clearly violated human dignity and in a context of colonial violence.” On August 26, they remains returned home.

This is one of the first restitutions since France introduced a bill meant to accelerate the return of objects and human beings removed due to “illicit appropriation” between 1815 and 1972. This is in line with French President Emmanuel Macron’s broader attempts to address the lasting damage caused to African nations due to French colonialism.

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5. Trump meets with Smithsonian leadership after threats of content review.

The Trump administration is continuing their attacks on the Smithsonian Museums in Washington DC. Last week, the White House appeared to denounce a number of works by simply listing and describing them in an article titled, President Trump is Right about the Smithsonian. Among these works are paintings and sculptures that have never been displayed at a Smithsonian museum. Previously, the White House also issued an executive order targeting federal museums for promulgating “a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth” and calling on the Smithsonian to abandon its “divisive, race-centered ideology.”

This week, President Trump had lunch with the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Lonnie G. Bunch III. In spite of previous attacks on Bunch himself, along with other Smithsonian officials, this open channel of communication could signal a softening of the administration’s stance toward federal museums.

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That last topic is much larger than the Weekly Roundup can cover. The Trump Administration’s continued attacks on museums has the power to radically change our national museums for the worse. I struggle to offer constructive feedback as to what museum officials can do to resist this administration. What would you do in Bunch’s position? Leave a comment below.

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1. Germany returns Nazi-looted work by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller.

Germany has returned an oil painting by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller to the heirs of Jewish entrepreneur Greta Klein. The Klein family fled Vienna for Palestine in 1938 due to Nazi persecution and this painting along with the family’s villa and remaining art collection were seized by the Nazis. The Nazis marked the painting in question, Hansl's erste Ausfahrt (Hansel's First Journey), for the Führermuseum in Linz.

After WWII, Ttis painting entered Germany’s national collection. While experts estimate that over 200,000 works looted by the Nazis in Germany before and during WWII remain missing, the German government has restituted less than 100 since the 1998 Washington Principles.

2. The Antiquities Coalition adds Ukranian antiquity to their “Ten Most Wanted Antiquities” list.

The Antiquities Coalition has added the Mariupol Bull Figurine to their “Ten Most Wanted Antiquities” list. Settlers near the Azov Sea carved this figurine from animal bone around 6000 BCE, and it was likely used in a ritual context or as a children’s toy.

The Mariupol Bull Figurine’s precise location is unknown, but it has appeared in photographs in a Russian museum exhibition depicting the Azov region as historically Russian. This raises concerns that this object and others are being used as propaganda to justify Russia’s territorial claims.

While the number of cultural institutions the Russian Army has looted increased significantly after the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been systematically looting Ukrainian cultural heritage since they invaded Crimea in 2014. Since then, over 1.7 million objects have been lost as Russia seeks to justify their territorial expansion by destroying Ukrainian cultural identity, and profit off of this destruction by selling antiquities on the black market.

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3. Antonio Solario’s Madonna and Child returns to Italy.

In 1973, a thief broke into the Civic Museum of Belluno and stole half a dozen works. Among these was Antonio Solario’s Madonna and Child, which Baroness Barbara de Dozsa acquired from her ex-husband upon his death. Baron de Dozsa purchased the painting shortly after this theft in 1973. It’s whereabouts were unknown until Baroness de Dozsa attempted the sell the painting in 2017.

A researcher flagged the work as listed in the Italian Carabinieri’s database of stolen artworks, setting off a years long battle to return the painting. UK Police were hesitant to seize the work, so the founder and CEO of Art Recovery International, Christopher Marinello, stepped in to negotiate a civil resolution. Eventually, he convinced Baroness de Dozsa that the work was a legal liability, and she agreed to return the painting. The Civic Museum of Belluno displayed the painting from July 21–27 alongside two other paintings, both Madonnas by Bartolomeo Montagna, that were also stolen in 1973. It is now undergoing restoration and will remain in the museum’s permanent collection moving forward.

4. Manhattan D.A.’s Office repatriates a 17th-century manuscript to Hungary.

Austrian Jesuit Zacharias Traber (1611–1678) published his manuscript Nervus Opticus Sive Tractatus Theoricus in Tres Libros (The Optic Nerve, or a Theoretical Treatise in Three Books) in 1675. The copy in question was illicitly removed from Eötvös József Collegium’s library in Budapest during WWII, where it is now set to return. This copy is one of the precious few surviving examples dedicated to Archbishop György Szelepcsényi (1595–1695).

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Multispectral imaging confirmed that a stamp of Eötvös József Collegium was deliberately removed from the codex, securing the identity of this manuscript as the one lost during the war. On July 23, 2025 the Manhattan D.A.’s Office returned the manuscript to Hungarian authorities.

5. Manhattan D.A.’s Office returns Visigoth Pendants to Spain.

The Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU) in Manhattan continues to make headlines this summer with the repatriation of two sixth-century Visigoth pendants.

The MET purchased these objects from known trafficker, Robin Symes, in 1990. Earlier this year, the ATU seized these two pendents from the MET and on July 24, 2025 the Manhattan D.A.’s Office announced the repatriation of both pendants to Spain.

6. Sotheby’s returns the Piprahwa Gems to India.

After public outcry, Sotheby’s agreed to return the Piprahwa Gems to India. One of the “most astonishing finds of the modern era,” this collection of gems contains over 1,800 pearls, rubies, sapphires, and patterned gold sheets.

Englishman William Claxton Peppé unearthed the gems from a colonial estate in northern India in 1898. Buried alongside the gems were bone fragments and an inscribed urn linking the fragments to the Buddha himself. Peppé eventually handed most of the find off to the colonial government, but the kept soe of the gems. They remained in the family’s possession for over 100 years. After Sotheby’s Hong Kong announced their intent to sell the gems in May of 2025, Buddhist leaders and Indian officials protested to halt the sale. In July 2025, Sotheby’s cancelled their sale and agreed to return the gems to India.

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7. Loon Dancing Hat returned to the Kitikmeot region of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

Canadian company Imperial Oil returned a 100-year-old dancing hat to the indigenous people of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Made with caribou hide, sinew, loon feathers and a loon beak, this hat was used in the Akkuarmiujut freestyle dance, which elders in the community remember their fathers and grandfathers participating in.

Imperial Oil currently owns an undisclosed number of indigenous objects. It is unknown how Imperial Oil acquired this hat, but for the last year they have been working with the Calgary's Glenbow Museum to return indigenous objects to their communities. On Wednesday, Aug. 6, a repatriation ceremony was held at Luke Novoligak Community Hall.

8. Apollo Auctions sells Guennol Grasshopper for £340,000.

Created with wood and ivory around 1350 - 1340 BCE, the Guennol Grasshopper is an ancient cosmetic container with a contested provenance history.

Alastair Bradley Martin (Gwennol being Welsh for Martin) acquired this object from New York dealer Joseph Brummer sometime in the 1940s. Brummer acquired it from Egyptian dealer Maurice Nahman, who bought it from Howard Carter. Accorder to Brummer’s records, this object was originally found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Controversy around Carter’s illicit removal of objects from the tomb of Tutankhamun has long been an “open secret” among Egyptologists and collectors. Museums such as the MET have moved to return objects taken by Carter. In recent years, an increasing awareness of provenance and the ethical stewardship of antiquities has shifted the tide away from purchasing or displaying objects with potentially illicit histories. When asked by Apollo Magazine about the provenance of this object, Apollo Auctions said they conducted “extensive due diligence before listing the piece for auction and received a certificate of clearance confirming that the item had not been stolen or looted.” Yet they also listed the object as potentially originating from the tomb of Tutankhamun, and once belonging to Howard Carter.

It is unclear who purchased this object, but on July 27 it sold for £340,000.

9. Bishop Museum begins phased return of over 10,000 objects to the Mariana Islands.

The board of the Bishop Museum in Hawai’i unanimously voted to deaccession and return over 10,000 objects to the Mariana Islands. These objects were acquired both licitly and illicitly by Hans Hornbostel between 1920–1927, and were previously part of their permanent Cultural Resources collection.

These objects include Latte Stones, or guma’ latte, which were indigenous home structures often build atop the graves of elders, which remain an important marker of CHamoru identity to this day.

Aug. 9, 2025 marks the beginning of a phased return of these objects. Indigenous leaders have labeled this an act of “rematriation” rather than repatriation. While repatriation is the return of physical objects to communities, rematriation focuses on “restoring Indigenous peoples’ relationships with their ancestral lands and cultures” and represents a meaningful restoration to wronged communities that supports cultural continuity.

10. First-century marble bust of Alexander the Great returned to Italy.

The Manhattan D.A.’s Office announced the return of 31 objects to Italy on Aug. 5, 2025. Included in these objects was a first-century marble bust of Alexander the Great.

This bust was excavated in the early 20th Century and originally housed at the Antiquarium Forense Museum. At some point prior to 1974 it was stolen and subsequently laundered through multiple individuals and institutions in New York before Safani Gallery purchased it in 2017. After the Safani Gallery included the bust in an advertisement for a 2018 art fair, someone tipped off Italian and American authorities of its illicit past. The Manhattan D.A.’s Office seized the sculpture in 2018, kicking off a seven year legal battle in which Safani Gallery argued they should receive compensation for the bust because they purchased it in “good faith.” Ultimately their claim was denied and the bust was repatriated to Italy on Aug. 5, 2025.

There were many more than 10 stories I could have included in this week’s Roundup. If I missed something interesting, please drop it in the comments! Also, what do you think about the differentiation of repatriation and rematriation?

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