CHRISTIE’S TO AUCTION RECOVERED ART

A year ago, the settlement was hailed as one of the largest restitutions of art seized by the Nazis. Now about 170 Old Master paintings returned to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker, a prominent Dutch dealer who fled Amsterdam in 1940, are to be offered at Christie’s in three sales, beginning in April in New York, reports Carol Vogel for the New York Times. The auction house says the paintings, many on view in Dutch museums and government buildings since the 1950s, could fetch from twenty-two to thirty-five million dollars. “It was a hard decision,” said Marei von Saher, the widow of Edward, the only son of Desirée and Jacques Goudstikker. “I was in Holland a few days ago and saw the paintings for the first time. Some hit my heart right away. It was overwhelming.”