Nazi looted painting from Goudstikker collection found in Amsterdam street trash

Art detective Arthur Brand has tracked down another valuable painting stolen from the collection of Amsterdam art dealer Jacque Goudstikker by the Nazis. The painting spent years in the cellar of an Amsterdam local, who found it among household waste on the street.

It involves a diptych of the interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, likely painted by Hendrick van der Burgh, Brand said on X.

Amsterdam local Robert van der Hoek stumbled across it by chance while driving along the Prinsengracht one morning, he told the Telegraaf. “It was lying among a pile of waste, clearly intended to be removed by the city sanitation department,” he said. “I took it with me because I thought it was a shame to throw it away, and I put it in the cellar. It stood there for years.”

Last month, Arthur Brand tracked down another painting stolen from the Goudstikker collection. That painting, Portrait of a Young Girl by Toon Kelder, had hung on the wall of the descendants of Dutch SS commander Hendrik Seyffardt for years.

Seeing the report of that recovery made Van der Hoek think about the painting in his cellar. He reached out, and Brand determined that it was indeed a piece of Nazi-looted art and from Goudstikker’s collection. The painting will now be returned to the Jewish art dealer’s descendants, Brand said on X.

This is the third painting from the Goudstikker collection recovered in a short period. Last year, AD and researcher Paul Post found another painting, Portrait of a Lady by the Italian painter Giuseppe Ghislandi, hanging in the living room of the daughter of a high-ranking Nazi official. They spotted the painting in a real estate listing for her home in Argentina. The Argentine police raided the home, and the family eventually surrendered the painting.