Landscape With Smokestacks. The Case Of The Allegedly Plundered Degas

Cover Type: Hardcover
Book Condition: Fine
Jacket Condition: Fine
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Publisher Place: Usa
Publisher Year: 2000
Edition: First Edition

Description: 122 pages. Book and Jacket appear to have hardly been read and are both in Fine condition throughout.

Publishers Description: As two of the nations premier art museums . . . published lists of hundreds of artworks with incomplete pedigrees that could have been plundered during the Nazi era, it became clear that some of the most visited, well-loved treasures in America are now in question.From the Chicago Tribune, APRIL 13, 2OOOAgainst this background, the story of one work of art, Landscape with Smokestacks by Degas, has been featured in headlines and on television. As told by the media, the story is straightforward. The landscape, owned by a Jewish banker in the Netherlands, was sent to Paris in 1939. The Nazis occupied France and stole the landscape. The Jewish banker and his wife were killed in the Holocaust. Their heirs searched for the landscape but did not locate it until, a half century later, it was found in the possession of an art collector in Chicago. The heirs sued to recover the work.But the real story is far more complicatedand more compellingthan that told by the media. Had the landscape been sent to Paris for safekeeping or to be sold Was the work stolen by the Nazis or sold to an art dealer during the warDuring the litigation a mass of documents was produced that shed light on the fate of the landscape. But because the suit was settled before trial, the story under the surface of the media headlines has not been publicly presented. Howard J. Trienens, a lawyer for the defendant collector, tells the story of this Degas works travels from its prewar home in the Netherlands to the Art Institute of Chicago, where it is now on display.Whatever the merits of the respective claims, the story of Landscape with Smokestacks is an absorbing mystery. And while the mystery cannot be fully solved, Trienenss book demonstrates the unpredictable complexity that can surround Holocaust-related restitution cases. The book also challenges the performance of the media in their superficial treatment of this emotionally charged story.About the Authors:Howard J. Trienens served as a law clerk to Supreme Court chief justice Frederick M. Vinson from 1950 to 1952 before permanently joining the law firm of Sidley & Austin, where he became a partner in 1956. He has been a senior vice president and general counsel for AT&T and a director of R. R. Donnelley & Sons and G. D. Searle and is currently a member of the Northwestern University Board of Trustees. He lives in Glencoe, Illinois.

ISBN: 9780810118201