Spoils of War

Based on the acclaimed international symposium held in 1995, The Spoils of War explores the ongoing debate over the vast amounts of art and cultural property displaced as a result of World War II. Not only paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts but also archaeological artifacts, rare books and manuscripts, musical instruments and scores, religious objects, and memorabilia of every description were seized by the Nazis, taken by individuals, or removed to the USSR by the Soviet army at the end of the war. Now, more than fifty years later, lost and stolen objects continue to appear on the art market and in private, museum, and state collections, including masterpieces of Impressionist painting, old master drawings from the Franz Koenigs collection, and gold treasures excavated by Schliemann at Troy. Questions of ownership remain unresolved and are battled out in court, legislated, or negotiated in treaties. At the three-day symposium, organized by The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, New York, distinguished specialists - government representatives, curators, archaeologists, historians and journalists, former military officers, and experts in art law - took part in spirited, candid, and often moving discussions, which are fully documented only in this unprecedented book.