Salt mines and castles: The discovery and restitution of looted European art

by Thomas Carr Howe

On our way back to the train, George said that the other cases—the ones we had seen when we first went into the Kaiser Josef mine—contained the dismantled panels of the Millionen Zimmer and the Chinesisches Kabinett from Schönbrunn. The Alt Aussee mine, he said, had been originally selected by the Viennese as a depot for Austrian works of art, which accounted for the panels being there. They had been brought to the mine in 1942. Then, a year later, the Nazis took it over as a repository for the collections of the proposed Führer Museum at Linz.

We boarded the train again and rumbled along a dark tunnel to the Mineral Kabinett, one of the smaller mine chambers. Again there was an iron door to be unlocked. We walked through a vestibule into a low-ceilinged room about twenty feet square. The walls were light partitions of unfinished lumber. Ranged about them were the panels of the great Ghent altarpiece—the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb—their jewel-like beauty undimmed after five hundred years. The colors were as resplendent as the day they were painted by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in 1432.

This famous altarpiece, the greatest single treasure of Belgium, had also been seized by the Germans. One of the earliest examples of oil painting, it consisted originally of twelve panels, eight of which were painted on both sides. It was planned as a giant triptych of four central panels, with four panels at either side. The matching side panels were designed to fold together like shutters over a window. Therefore they were painted on both sides.

I knew something of the history of the altarpiece. It belonged originally to the Cathedral of St. Bavon in Ghent. Early in the nineteenth century, the wings had been purchased by Edward Solly, an Englishman living in Germany. In 1816, he had sold them to the King of Prussia and they were placed in the Berlin Museum. There they had remained until restored to Belgium by the terms of the Versailles Treaty. From 1918 on, the entire triptych was again in the Cathedral of St. Bavon. In 1933, the attention of the world was drawn to the altarpiece when the panel in the lower left-hand corner was stolen. This was one of the panels painted on both sides. The obverse represented the Knights of Christ; the reverse, St. John the Baptist.

According to the story, the thief sent the cathedral authorities an anonymous letter demanding a large sum of money and guarantee of his immunity for the return of the panels. As proof that the panels were in his possession, he is said to have returned the reverse panel with his extortion letter. The authorities agreed to these terms but sought to lay a trap for the culprit. Their attempt was unsuccessful and nothing was heard of the panel until a year or so later.

On his deathbed, the thief—one of the beadles of the cathedral—confessed his guilt. As he lay dying, he managed to gasp, “You will find the panel ...” but he got no further. The panel has never been found.

In May 1940, the Belgians entrusted the altarpiece to France for safekeeping. Packed in ten cases, it was stored in the Château of Pau together with many important works of art from the Louvre. The Director of the French National Museums, mindful of his grave responsibilities, obtained explicit guarantees from the Germans that these treasures would be left inviolate. By the terms of this agreement, confirmed by the Vichy Ministry of Fine Arts, the Ghent altar was not to be moved without the joint consent of the Director of the French National Museums, the Mayor of Ghent and the German organization for the protection of French monuments.

Notwithstanding this contract, the Director of the French National Museums learned quite by accident in August 1942 that the altarpiece had just been taken to Paris. Dr. Ernst Büchner, who was director of the Bavarian State Museums, in company with three other German officers had gone to Pau the day before with a truck and ordered the Director of the Museum there to hand over the retable. A telegram from M. Bonnard, Vichy Minister of Fine Arts, arriving simultaneously, reinforced Dr. Büchner’s demands. Nothing was known of its destination or whereabouts, beyond the fact that it had been taken to Paris.

There the matter rested until the summer of 1944. With the arrival of Allied armies on French soil, reports of missing masterpieces were received by our MFA&A officers. The Ghent altarpiece was among them. But there were no clues as to where it had gone. Months passed and by the time our troops had approached Germany, our Monuments officers, all similarly briefed with photographs and other pertinent data concerning stolen works of art, began to hear rumors about the Lamb. It might be in the Rhine fortress of Ehrenbreitstein; perhaps it had been taken to the Berghof at Berchtesgaden or possibly to Karinhall, Göring’s palatial estate near Berlin. And then again it might have been flown out of the country altogether—to one of the neutral countries, Spain or Switzerland.