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A Renaissance masterpiece, Nazi looters, a double murder … and a happy ending

His grandparents had to sell their paintings for a pittance – and then were killed. Simon Goodman on why the recovery of one means so much

A masterpiece by the Italian Renaissance artist Paolo Uccello, which disappeared after the Nazis forced its owner to sell it for a pittance before sending him and his wife to their deaths, is to be sold this week after its current owners discovered its shocking past.

The painting, Battle on the Banks of a River, had belonged to Friedrich “Fritz” Gutmann, who was murdered at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944, shortly before his wife, Louise, was gassed at Auschwitz.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3g21RQN

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