SWITSERLAND – One of Switzerland’s leading art museums says it will remove five paintings from one of its exhibitions while it investigates whether they were looted by the Nazis.

The works – part of a collection at the Kunsthaus Zurich museum – are by some of the world’s most acclaimed artists, including Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.  There have long been suspicions about the provenance of works in the Emil Bührle Collection – named after a German-born arms dealer who made his fortune during World War Two by making and selling weapons to the Nazis.

The decision to remove the paintings comes following the publication of new guidelines aimed at dealing with the large number of cultural works that have still not been returned to the families they were stolen from. The artworks that are under investigation are: Jardin de Monet à Giverny by Claude Monet, Portrait of the Sculptor Louis-Joseph by Gustave Courbet, Georges-Henri Manuel by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Old Tower by Vincent van Gogh, and La route montante by Paul Gauguin.

The foundation board for the Emil Buhrle Collection said in a statement it was “committed to seeking a fair and equitable solution for these works with the legal successors of the former owners, following best practices”. A sixth work in the collection, La Sultane by Edouard Manet, has also come under further scrutiny but the foundation said it did not believe the new guidelines applied to it and that the painting would be considered separately.

“Due to the overall historical circumstances relating to the sale, the Foundation is prepared to offer a financial contribution to the estate of Max Silberberg in respect to the tragic destiny of the former owner,” it said. Silberberg was a German Jewish industrialist whose extensive art collection was sold at forced auctions by the Nazis. It is thought he was murdered at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp during the Holocaust. According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper, there has been debate about whether Silberberg was forced to sell La Sultane or whether he freely did so for financial reasons. …[+]