Munich, Sep 3 (DPA) Bavarian detectives are looking for the owner of a painting stolen at the end of World War II, after the item worth an estimated 100,000 euros ($142,000) appeared on a TV show, police officers said.
The painting by artist Frans Francken the Younger, titled “The Sermon on the Mount” (St Paul in Lystria), was shown on Bavarian state television last November, during a programme which assesses the value of antique items found in viewer’s homes.
During the programme on Bayerischer Rundfunk, experts confirmed the authenticity and value of the painting by Francken, who belonged to a significant 17th-Century Flemish painting dynasty.
In April, a viewer contacted the Bavarian Office of Criminal Investigation to alert them that the work of art presented in November – if indeed genuine – may have come to its current owner through theft.
The painting measuring 33 by 79.5 centimetres is thought to have been nabbed from Hitler’s so-called Fuehrerbau in central Munich and has been missing since 1945.
Art experts think the painting, intended in the 1940s for a museum in the Austrian town of Linz, had not been brought to security in time as US troops advanced at the end of the war.
As the Bavarian state broadcaster refused to name the individual who presented the artwork on the TV programme, the police are appealing to the public for information leading to the person currently in possession of the painting.
The Bayerischer Rundfunk told DPA that it was making use of its journalistic right to protect its sources.
