Marei von Saher Secures Return of Nazi-Looted Van Goyen Masterpiece

The restitution follows a formal recommendation from the Netherlands' Restitutions Committee, which determined that the 1940 seizure of the painting was a clear act of theft masked by a veneer of legality. The Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science adopted these findings, clearing the way for the work to return to the von Saher family. This recovery is the third Dutch restitution for the heirs under the Washington Principles, building on previous legal successes in 2006 and 2013.

This victory arrives just weeks after the law firm Freedman Normand Friedland LLP achieved a separate milestone in Argentina. On September 4, 2026, a federal judge ordered the return of Giacomo Ceruti’s Portrait of a Lady, which had been looted by Göring and held by the family of an SS officer for decades. Attorney Yaél M. Weitz spearheaded the effort to track the painting after it appeared in an Argentine real estate listing. Despite these recent successes, the search continues for hundreds of other works from Jacques Goudstikker’s original collection, which once numbered over 1,300 pieces.