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Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods), the subject of Joris van der Haagen's painting, is a royal palace in The Hague. It is one of three official residences of the Dutch royal family. Image by PeteBobb. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Netherlands license.

Dutch royal family to return painting confiscated by Nazis

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AFP) – The Dutch royal family will return a painting in its collection after discovering that the Nazis confiscated it from Jewish owners, the palace said on Tuesday.

The discovery was made by independent research commissioned by the palace in 2012 into art objects acquired since the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933.

“A Jewish collector was forced in 1942 to hand over the painting Haagse Bos with view over Huis Ten Bosch Palace by Joris van der Haagen to the (Nazi) bank Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co in Amsterdam,” the report said.

After the war and the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands “the painting ended up with a Dutch art dealer where queen Juliana bought it in 1960 without knowing about its history,” it said.

A royal art association has made contact with the descendants of the original owner with an eye to restitution, it said, adding that no further details would be provided because of privacy concerns.