An El Greco painting, one of several dozen from a collection of Old Masters previously belonging to a Viennese industrialist and seized by the Gestapo in Vienna in 1938, has been returned to the family of its former owner after a swift process of recovery, thanks to a cooperative dealer.
The painting, “Portrait of a Gentleman,” was known to have been sold to a dealer in New York in the 1950s, but attempts to reach him proved unsuccessful and the work was able to change hands several times over the next 60 years, before resurfacing again for sale in New York, the institutions that helped facilitate the recovery said.
