Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Royal Library of Belgium" in English language version.
The art piece originally belonged to the Dorville family, the descendants of Jewish lawyer and art collector Arthur Dorville, forced by the Nazis to sell his collection in 1942. The library said it was unaware that the painting had been stolen and that it acquired it in the 60s from a French art dealer, alongside thousands of other artworks. "We bought the watercolour in 1968 in good faith," Sara Lammens, the library's interim art director told Le Vif. "After the war, the library bought thousands of works, whose provenance was not always thoroughly checked." "Often, this was not possible because it concerned art pieces who were put on the market with an incomplete historical record," Lammens added. She said the library would look into the matter and, if the robbery was confirmed and if the Dorvilles were never indemnified for the theft, it would either return the painting or offer compensation for it.
