War criminals

A number of pieces from the NK collection (Netherlands Art Property Collection) used to belong to enemy forces or collaborators in the Netherlands. Which is to say that the works used to belong to persons who were convicted after the war for their wartime behaviour. Although it is not clear how the art works came into their possession, there is a strong suspicion that they were illegally acquired. Some of the art objects in question were sold by the persons involved during the war. As with most of the NK objects, these art works were handed over to the SNK after the war by the Allied authorities. In most cases, the works of art were confiscated after the war in the Netherlands itself, from the residences or offices of the criminals.

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Pieter Menten, who after the war initially received only a light sentence, received media attention in 1976 when he attempted to auction off his collection of paintings. The collection turned out to consist of art works he had acquired after the war, but the furore over the auction did lead to his arrest. He was convicted in 1980 of war crimes committed in Poland. Menten had returned to the Netherlands from Poland in 1943, laden with possessions. The NK collection contains a few paintings that Menten had disposed of in 1943 and 1944. It is very possible that these art works were in fact among the spoils of war that he gathered in Poland and not at all from the Netherlands.