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Paintings from the Schloss Collection
In September 2025, thanks to a handful of leads received through the Foundation's Art Leads program, two seventeenth-century still-life paintings of flowers attributed to Dutch artist Ambrosius Bosschaert were discovered at an auction house in Newark, Ohio. Each painted on copper and measuring just five by eight inches, the works had been listed for sale as unclaimed property from a safety deposit box.
Photo: Bob Vitale/Columbus Dispatch
Discovery and Research
Research by the Foundation's team identified the paintings as being part of the collection of Adolphe and Lucie Haas Schloss, a Jewish family in Paris whose remarkable private collection of 333 Old Master works was targeted by Nazi officials and their French collaborators in 1943. During the war years, the Schloss collection was inventoried, seized, and redistributed through forced sales and legal maneuvers that ensured their transfer into German hands.
Many works, including the two attributed to Bosschaert, were set aside for Hitler’s planned museum in Linz before being sent to the Führerbau in Munich. As the city fell to U.S. troops in April 1945, they disappeared, and it is believed that the paintings may have been taken home by an American soldier as a souvenir, a fate shared by many cultural objects in the war’s chaotic aftermath.
The case came to the Foundation’s attention thanks to multiple tips submitted through its Art Leads program. Using resources available on the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP) website, we confirmed the Schloss provenance. In an effort to ensure the paintings did not disappear again, Foundation founder Robert M. Edsel traveled to Ohio to meet with the owners of Apple Tree Auction Center in person. Through its research and direct intervention the Foundation ensured the paintings were withdrawn from sale and safely secured by the auction house, which was cooperative throughout the process.
These two beautiful still lifes had remained hidden for nearly eighty years. Their identification not only resolved the fate of two long-missing works but also added critical evidence to the history of the Schloss collection’s looting and ensured the paintings will never again circulate unrecognized on the art market.
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Our team receives leads of works of art on a daily basis and is committed to researching each one of them. Research can be very time-consuming and expensive. Financial support can contribute to adding professionals to our experienced team as well as off-set the costs involved with restitutions.