Spotlight On: The UK Spoliation Advisory Panel

Jan Griffier, View of Hampton Court Palace, 1710

By Natasha Phillips-Geen

Whilst the Nazis’ looting of art collections across the territories they occupied between 1933 and 1945 has been extensively investigated in academic scholarship and well chronicled in popular culture, the presence of Nazi-looted art within the UK’s national and regional museums is less well known. Given that the UK was never occupied by the Nazis and retained its political independence and sovereignty throughout the Second World War, it may be surprising to those less familiar with the topic of Nazi-looted art that a number of artworks looted during the Nazi Era have nonetheless been identified within UK museum collections.^[1] In 1999, a claim was brought against the Tate Gallery concerning a painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Griffier depicting a topographical view of Hampton Court Palace beneath a clouded sky.^[2] Having previously belonged to a Düsseldorf Jewish banker who disappeared in 1937 and who is presumed to have died or been murdered during the Holocaust, the painting was the subject of a claim that exposed the UK Government's lack of an adequate legislative framework and institutional mechanisms for investigating and resolving claims relating to Nazi-looted cultural property.^[3] In response, the UK Spoliation Advisory Panel (the “Panel”) was established in 2000 as an independent advisory body to consider claims concerning cultural objects lost during the Nazi era and subsequently held in UK national collections or other public museums, advising claimants and institutions on appropriate action while taking account of both legal issues and non-legal obligations, including the moral strength of a claim.^[4]

Since its creation, the Panel has issued twenty-four recommendation reports, facilitated the restitution of seventeen artworks and recommended financial compensation in lieu of return in a further five cases, across claims brought by seventeen different claimant groups.^[5] Although not immune to legislative developments, changes in personnel, or bureaucratic reform, the Panel has remained the cornerstone of the United Kingdom’s approach to addressing the legacy of Nazi-looted art in public collections ever since.