Overview
- Art detective Arthur Brand says the Toon Kelder portrait, long displayed in the home of descendants of SS collaborator Hendrik Seyffardt, has been handed to a Dutch journalist to facilitate its return to Jacques Goudstikker’s heirs.
- Brand authenticated the work by a Goudstikker gallery label and the number 92 carved into the frame, which matched item 92 in a 1940 auction of art taken from the dealer’s collection.
- A Seyffardt relative who recently discovered his family link and the painting’s origin alerted Brand, expressed shame over the family’s past, and urged that the work be returned.
- Lawyers for Goudstikker’s heirs confirmed the painting was looted and demanded its return, while Dutch police cite expired statutes of limitations and the Restitution Committee lacks power over private owners.
- Goudstikker’s trove exceeded a thousand works and was seized in 1940 by Hermann Göring, with some 200 pieces returned in 2006, and similar finds continue to surface, including a 2025 recovery in Argentina.