Why Nazi-Looted Art Isn’t Being Returned

A couple of years ago, art looted by the Nazis was one of the biggest stories of the art world. “Yet, despite all the headlines, relatively little of this looted art has so far been restituted. True, it represents only a small proportion of what the Nazis stole from Jews. After World War II, hundreds of thousands of works were recovered by Allied forces and duly returned to their owners or their heirs.The issue today relates to art that was recovered but was not restituted and art that was resold during the war and ended up in museums and private collections. In theory, a structure is in place to address the problem.” But the reality…