Two tales of Nazi-looted artwork

In Germany, a panel has ruled against returning a Nazi-looted collection of rare prints to the son of its original owner, while a U.K. gallery has agreed to return Nazi-looted Old Master drawings to the heirs of the original owner.

On Thursday, the eight-member German Limbach Commission, which mediates disputes involving Nazi-looted artworks, ruled against returning approximately 4,300 rare posters and prints to 69-year-old Peter Sachs, son of the collection's original owner, Hans.

Sachs, who lives in Florida, was just a year old in 1938 when the Nazis seized his father's collection of about 12,500 rare posters of, which included political propaganda as well as elaborate ads for exhibits, cabarets and consumer products.

He has been trying to regain what remains of the collection, estimated to be worth between $10 million US and $50 million US and currently held by Berlin's German Historical Museum.

The museum inherited the collection from an East German counterpart in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It has maintained that Sachs' father received compensation of about $50,000 US for the collection from the West German government in 1961.

In its ruling Thursday, the panel cited a 1966 letter in which Hans Sachs told a friend he viewed the 1961 payment as appropriate.

However, Sachs has said when the compensation was paid, both sides believed the collection had beendestroyed. When his father discovered part of ithad in fact survived, he began trying to reclaim it, Sachs said. Hans Sachs died in 1974.

"I am inexpressibly saddened by the recommendation today," Sachs said in an interview.

His attorney said it was unclear what legal action Sachs might now take.

Brits to return Old Master drawings

The German panel's decision came just a day after the British culture ministry and a London gallery agreed to return two Nazi-looted Old Master drawings to the heirs of the original Czech owner.

On Wednesday, the culture ministry and London's Courtauld Institute of Art announced they had accepted a government panel's recommendation to return 17th-century drawings to the family of Arthur Feldmann, a Czech doctor who was tortured and killed by the Nazis.

Feldmann's collection — which includes three drawings attributed to Carl Ruthart, Frans van Mieris the Elder and Giuseppe Bibiena — eventually surfaced in London and were auctioned off by Sotheby's in 1946.

The London gallery has held the drawings since 1952 and said it is returning two of the works. The Feldmann family has agreed to allow it to keep the van Mieris drawing as a gift, officials said.

Last year, the British government agreed to compensate Feldmann's heirs for other Nazi-looted works that are now held by the British Museum.