The National Gallery of Victoria has taken off display its “yes-no” van Gogh portrait and agreed that despite it having been in Victoria’s collection for 74 years, it rightfully belongs to two unnamed South African sisters, heirs to an estate dispersed under duress during the rise of Hitler.
In what amounts to the first successful Nazi restitution claim on an artwork in an Australian public collection, NGV’s trustees agree Head of a Man was owned by the late Jewish industrialist Richard Semmel until 1933 when he sold it under duress at auction in Amsterdam.
