When Abraham Bredius, a renowned Rembrandt expert and a former director of the Mauritshuis museum in the Hague left the museum 25 paintings when he died in 1946, they came with the specification that they were to always be on display.
The paintings included four paintings by Rembrandt and others by Jan Steen, Salomon van Ruysdael and other Dutch artists of the 'Golden Age.'
Now, descendants of his heir are suing the museum for return of the paintings, saying the museum has lost its rights to them by displaying only the Rembrandts and one van Ruysdael, while the others are all in storage.
A lawyer for the heirs, descendants of the protege Bredius named as his heir, told Dutch radio that “He had previously donated 34 works to the Rijksmuseum, without conditions, only to find as he later wrote that they ‘ended up hanging in a dark corner.’ He thought that this should not happen again.”
René Timmermans, a Mauritshuis spokesman, said in an email to the New York Times that the museum could not comment “as long as the case is being researched (and this might take a long time.)”
Image: Detail from Two African Men, one of the paintings that is on display
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