Joseph Mallord William Turner, Glaucus and Scylla, 1841

FORT WORTH, TX.- The Kimbell Art Museum just announced that it has repurchased the Joseph Mallord William Turner painting Glaucus and Scylla (1841), which the Museum had returned last year to the heirs of John and Anna Jaffé after an investigation concluded that the painting had been unlawfully seized by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in France in 1943. The painting was purchased this morning at Christie’s, New York, for a hammer price of $5.7 million.
Commented Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum: “This is a wonderful day both for the Jaffé heirs, who have now received compensation for the confiscation of the painting during the Nazi era, and for the Kimbell, which is able to welcome back its most important British painting. Turner’s late paintings represent one of the highpoints of European art, and Glaucus and Scylla has all of the expressive tumult and luminosity that you want in his late landscapes. We’re planning a big homecoming.”
The painting, which had been in the Kimbell’s collection since 1966 prior to its restitution last year, shows a mythological scene of unrequited love in which the brilliant setting sun suggests the power of fate. In 2006, in light of the evidence linking the Turner to an unlawful seizure, the Kimbell returned the painting to Alain Monteagle, the representative of the heirs of Anna Jaffé’s three nephews and one niece (all now deceased), to whom she bequeathed her property in her will. (Courtesy www.Artdaily.org)