Another stolen painting from the collection of art dealer Jacques Goudstikker has been recovered: a diptych depicting the interior of Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk by Hendrick van der Burgh (1627-1664). Amsterdammer Robert van der Hoek appears to have it in his possession. He saw it standing along the canal about thirty years ago.

“I was driving along the Prinsengracht and there was a mountain of coarse rubbish. I actually saw it straight away. I recognized it as a kind of old panel. I actually thought the painting itself was… terribly ugly. But I did see that it was an old panel. You don’t throw that away.”

His wife didn’t like it either and the diptych disappeared into the basement of their home. It stayed there year after year, because it was out of the way. They could also use it for a while to cover a hole in the wall.

The Pleuris

In May of this year, Van der Hoek was shocked when he arrived The Telegraph(opens in new window) read that a work from the Goudstikker collection hung on the wall of a descendant of a Dutch SS man. The painting in his basement had a sticker on the back with the text “Goudstikker Collection”, just like on the painting in the newspaper.

Jacques Goudstikker (1897-1940) was a Jewish art dealer who boarded a boat to England during the German attack on the Netherlands, because he knew he had to fear the worst from the Nazis. During his flight he fell through an open hatch into the hold and died.

His collection came into the hands of Nazi leader Hermann Göring, who kept the masterpieces and had some auctioned. After the war, descendants tried to locate the missing works of art.

“I thought I should contact De Telegraaf,” says Van der Hoek. “Then I got in touch with John van den Heuvel. He asked if I wanted to send a photo, of the back. And then the ball started rolling.”

Van den Heuvel forwarded the photos to art detective Arthur Brand. He confirmed that the panel came from the Goudstikker Collection. He found a description of it in a pocket book from Goudstikker, which contains 1,113 paintings from his collection.

Van der Hoek returns the diptych to his descendants. “We don’t do anything with it, I don’t want anything with it. This just has to go back to those people, that’s it. Actually, the story is more beautiful than the painting.”