One of El Greco’s (Dominikos Theotokopoulos) famous paintings, “Portrait of a Gentleman”, was returned to the relatives of the owner, after being denied for decades. The painting belonged to a Viennese industrialist and was confiscated by Gestapo in 1938. The painting was sold to an art dealer in New York in 1950. Subsequently, the art dealer was unreachable until the painting surfaced for sale again in 2010. Auctioning houses and other various dealers all cooperated so that the painting could be returned to its rightful owners.

Anne Webber, representative of the European Commission for Stolen Art, who represented the inheritors of this particular painting stated that “it is shocking to discover how much artwork was stolen during the rise of Nazism”.

The big problem is that 48 countries have co-signed the treaty to return artwork stolen by Nazis in 1998, but art dealers and auction houses are not obliged to follow said deal.

Julius Priester was forced to flee Vienna in 1938 and gave his art to a friend of his in order to safeguard them. The industrialist ended up in Mexico from where he began searching for his artwork after the end of WWII.

El Greco’s painting was returned to Priester exactly in the same frame it held when it was stolen. The trader who returned it asked for no money in returned and asked to keep his anonymity, since his only reward was the fact that what he did was the right thing to do.