SALE OF ART WORKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 38, 14 February 1941, Page 6

SALE OF ART WORKS

EFFORT BY GERMANY

APPARENT NEED OF FOREIGN EXCHANGE

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, February 12,

Hitler seems to have relinquished the role of Reich art "patron-in-chief and to have gone into the art dealing, or double dealing, business. He is arranging to .sell in the United States 14 old masters —some of the gems among the smaller pictures of the Kaiser Frederick Museum, Berlin.

It appears, states the Ministry of Economic Warfare, that these pictures are already on their way. via Siberia and the Pacific Ocean. They consist of three Rembrandts. three Van Eycks, and works of Botticelli, Fouquet, Vermeer of Delft, Velasquez, Raphael. Giorgione, and Lippi. Very few pictures by Fouquet and Giorgione are in existence. While the sale of the three Van Eycks will leave only one important picture by either of the Van Eycks in Berlin. It may be that Hitler intends to replenish the German collections of the schools concerned from the galleries of Holland, Belgium, and France. The picture by Lippi is of "The Nativity," and is accepted as having been painted ss an altar piece in the Medici Chapel in Florence. The Italians are left with a copy.

The transaction has doubtless been occasioned by Hitler's quest for foreign exchange, of which Germany stands sorely in need. Since- December, 1939. the British blockade has stopped German exports, including Italian bronzes of the first importance, which were essential to increase her dollar and other balances overseas. But apart from the fact that the present market value of Hitler's 14 pictures bears no relation to the catalogue value, estimated at £.2,000,000, it may be found that Americans will not be so ready to purchase in view of the fact that the release of dollars will make available a large sum of money for use in Nazi propaganda, espionage, and sabotage in America.

In his hunt for foreign exchange Hitler is prepared to part with Germany's Italian treasures regardless of the sentiments of the Axis partner, and it may be within the bounds of possibility that Mussolini would not be heartbroken at interception by the British of paintings which are the.essence of Italian genius.