Art: Tasteful Trophies

Soviet officers were showing U.S. correspondents through Germany’s Russian zone. Proudly they pointed out the war-battered Zwinger in Dresden. Plans were well under way, they boasted, for restoring the museum. But where were all the paintings listed in the catalogue?

The faintly embarrassed answer was that the best of them were gone. The Russians had shipped 1,695 masterpieces home, left only 1,231 minor paintings to cover the walls. Among the loot: Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Correggio’s Holy Night, 17 Rubenses and as many Rembrandts, 24 Van Dycks and seven Poussins, as well as paintings by Tintoretto, Velasquez, Vermeer, Manet, Renoir, Degas and Van Gogh. Total value of the Zwinger loot: $17,000,000.*

The Zwinger’s treasures have reportedly been “given” outright to Russia. The donors: an all-Russian “Trophy Commission.” England, France and the U.S. have jointly asked Moscow to account for the art treasures it has removed, but so far they have had no answer.

*The U.S., which has stored $80,000,000 worth of German-owned masterpieces in Washington’s National Gallery, has pledged to return it all.