A Nazi-looted painting of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Bernardo Strozzi was returned to its owner on Friday 22 November. She has placed it on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and has promised to donate it to LACMA. Painted by Strozzi around 1615, the saint was in the collection of Charles A. Loeser (d. 1928) in Florence. Loeser’s widow and heirs fled Florence prior to the German occupation of the city, and the painting seemingly vanished in April 1944. Milan-based art dealers Marco Voena and Fabrizio Moretti approached Sotheby’s about selling the work in 2009, but research into its provenance revealed it was on lists of Nazi-looted artworks.
