In recent art world news, a Nazi-looted sculpture has been restituted to the rightful owners by the City of Berlin. The looted art is a marble sculpture by Reinhold Begas entitled Susanna (1869-72) and the rightful owners are the heirs of the former publishing mogul Rudolf Mosse.
At the turn of the century, Mosse was one of the three wealthiest men in Berlin. According to The Art Newspaper, Mosse's "palatial neo-Baroque home on Leipziger Platz was filled with paintings, sculptures, antique furnishings and tapestries. His collection included works by Max Liebermann, Carl Spitzweg, Wilhelm Leibl, Hans Makart and Adolph Menzel."
Mosse was a successful publisher of the Berliner Tagesblatt newspaper, "a staunch advocate of democracy even before the Weimar Republic." After his passing in 1920, Mosse's son-in-law, Hans Lachmann-Mosse managed the newspaper until he and his wife, Felicia Lachmann-Mosse, were forced to flee the Nazi regime eventually emigrating to the United States from Switzerland.
Mosse's collection had been bequeathed to his daughter, Ms. Felicia Lachmann-Mosse, but had become lost after her emigration. In 1934, the family's possessions were seized and sold at auction and the family never saw the proceeds.
The Mosse Art Restitution Project was established by the family in 2012 in order to locate the missing art works. Since the founding of the Project, eight works were returned in 2015.
According to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, the marble sculpture will remain on loan to Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, where it is currently on display.
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