On 1 July 2008 the Commission for Looted Art in Europe announced the recovery of three rare 4th century gold glasses, looted from the Działyńska Collection at Gołuchów Castle in Poland in 1941, and found in the collection of the Israel Museum Jerusalem. To read the Commission's Press Release,click here.   

On 6 May 2008 the Commission for Looted Art in Europe announced the return of a Limoges enamel processional cross from Austria to the Działyńska heirs 67 years after it was looted by the Nazis in Warsaw. To read the Commission's Press Release, click here.

The Austrian Supreme Court has rejected attempts by the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer to correct the arbitration ruling denying the return of the Klimt painting “Amalie Zuckerkandl” to them.  Read the analysis of the case by their lawyer, E Randol Schoenberg here. 

Read the Dutch Resitutution Committee's Binding Advice concerning the dispute over the restitution of: A Prayer before Supper by Jan Toorop from the estate of E. Flersheim published on 7 April 2008 by clicking here. 

The Nuremberg Municipal Library has published a first list of 115 former owners from Nuremberg and Franconia of looted books in its collection whose heirs are being sought. Click here for details and further information.

Listen to 'The Changing World: Looted Art' on NPR, a look at 'trophy art' - European masterpieces stolen first by Nazi Germany, and then seized by the Soviets at the end of World War II
by clicking here.

For fifty years only the Communist elite knew what treasures had been locked away in secret depositories across the Soviet Union after World War II -- until two former Soviet museum curators blew the whistle, and published their revelations in an American magazine. Now the original owners of the stolen artworks, some of whom were victims of the Holocaust, are demanding their property back. The BBC’s Charles Wheeler reports on the uncertain future of Russia’s trophy art.  A special collaboration between BBC World Service and PRI's "The World,"  For further details of interviewees in the programme, click here.

Watch National Geographic's recent short film about Claude Cassirer's battle to recover his family's lost Pissarro from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid by clicking here.

Read papers given at the Sotheby's Restitution Symposium 30 January 2008 in Amsterdam.

Read the press statement of André-Marc Delocque-Fourcaud and Pierre Konowaloff, heirs of the famous Russian collectors, Shchukin and Morozov, whose collections were expropriated by Lenin in 1917 and some of the great paintings from which are currently on display at the Royal Academy London's 'From Russia' exhibition. See also our news archive for details of the demands by Russia that the paintings be protected from seizure in the UK and of the legislation brought in by the British government as a result.

Restitution decisions: All restitution decisions made by the Austrian authorities since 1998 for works in federal institutions are listed online on the website of the Vienna Commission for Provenance Research (Kommission für Provenienzforschung). The decisions, made under the December 1998 Restitution Law, are recorded according to the names of the 129 individuals and families from whom the works of art were expropriated. Each decision is provided in full and sets out both the reasons for restitution and the details of the works of art to be restituted.