Art: The Pattern of Pillage

Near a lonely castle in Bavaria, air-conditioned railroad cars were backed onto a siding, stealthily loaded with one of the richest art collections in the world. Art-lover Hermann Göring, hastily moving south, was rumored to have boarded the sealed, armored train and rolled off with his treasures. Art experts had reason to believe that the Göring loot included Raphael’s Madonna of Divine Love, Botticelli’s Minerva and Centaur, Titian’s Portrait of Lavinia, Van Eyck’s altarpiece The Adoration of the Lamb.

Elsewhere in Europe:

¶ The vast Merkers (Germany) salt-mine cache (TIME, April 16) was further sorted, found to contain French Impressionist Edouard Manet’s In the Conservatory. The Manet was photographed riding out of the mine on a donkey-line car, its 19th-Century figures looked at curiously by G.I.s.

¶ Another art cache (some $10 million worth), was found in a village near Vicenza, Italy: more German loot lifted from Italian museums. Packed in 23 cases, it included Donatello sculpture, rare coins.

¶ When Linz, Austria, was surrendered intact at week’s end, the Allies could plan to catalogue the contents of the huge Linz Museum built by Hitler in memory of his mother. The Mother Hitler memorial collection is probably heavy with mediocre German pictures reflecting Hitler’s infallibly turgid taste.

¶ Some $50,000,000 worth of stolen Polish art was discovered in the home of the Nazi Governor-General of Poland.

¶ The cache in a Seigen (Germany) copper mine (TIME, April 16) was reported to contain Rubens’ Descent to Hades, El Greco’s Cross Carrier, Rembrandt’s Self Portrait, Van Dyck’s Holy Family, was estimated at some $200,000,000.