5 paintings missing since WWII returning to Germany

Source: AP

By MATTHEW LEE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Five paintings missing since World War II are being returned to collections in Germany at the behest of the heirs of their American acquirers.

The paintings, including three won by an American GI in a poker game, were turned over to the German government Tuesday. Their return was organized by the State Department and the Monuments Men Foundation, which promotes the work of those who protected cultural works during the war and seeks to track down and repatriate objects that went missing.

The three paintings won by the GI in the poker game, stored in a potassium mine for safekeeping during the war and then mailed home to his wife, are from an art gallery in the central German city of Dessau. They are works by the Flemish Baroque painter Frans Francken III, the German painter Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich and Austrian artist Franz de Paula Ferg, according to the foundation.

The other two — a painting of Queen Victoria and her eldest daughter, Victoria, who married German Emperor Frederick III, and a painting of Charles I — had been in a castle near Frankfurt that was confiscated by the U.S. military in 1945 and turned into an officers' club. They were purchased by an American woman who was serving in Germany as a librarian in the U.S. Special Services after the war, said the foundation.

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This image provided by the Monuments Men Foundation shows a copy of a painting titled "King Charles I in Three Positions Kings," possibly attributed to the school of Anthony an Dyck, oil on copper. The painting, one of five missing since World War II, are being returned to collections in Germany at the behest of the heirs of their American acquirers. It had been in a castle near Frankfurt that was confiscated by the U.S. military in 1945 and turned into an officers\' club. They were purchased by an American woman who was serving in Germany as a librarian in the U.S. Special Services after the war, said the Monuments Men Foundation. (Anna Bottinelli/Monuments Men Foundation via AP)

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