Orphaned Art

This detail from Moritz Daniel Oppenheim's Marriage Portrait of Charlotte von Rothschild (1836) shows a beautiful lady or the flattering work of a talented artist. Either way, it's a great painting, one of 50 unclaimed artworks on show at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem: Orphaned Art: Looted Art from the Holocaust. This display compliments the museum's current Looking for Owners exhibition, which I previewed in February (CLICK). The curator of this museum is a plonker, because in February I sent a query about Philippe Mercier's "The Flute Player" (CLICK) and last week received an auto e-mail reply to confirm it had been deleted unopened! This makes me wonder if the museum really wants to restore these paintings to their rightful heirs or is simply putting on an emotive show to pull in the punters.