“Paintings looted by Nazi, recovered by Allies to be auctioned in NY”

by Patricia Reaney via “Yahoo News“

“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Paintings looted by the Nazis during World War Two and retrieved by the Monuments Men, the Allied group tasked with returning masterpieces to their rightful owners, will be sold at auction on Thursday in New York.

The works, which will go under the hammer during Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings and Sculpture, were among the tens of thousands of works recovered by the art experts whose story is told in the George Clooney film “The Monuments Men,” which opens in U.S. theaters on February 7.

“The scale of looting was absolutely extraordinary,” said Lucian Simmons, Sotheby’s head of restitution.

“In France, for example, 36,000 paintings were stolen from institutions and largely from individuals. The Monuments Men managed to recover and return the majority of those,” he said in an interview.

Two small paintings in the sale, “La cueillette des roses” and “Le musicien” by the French rococo artist Jean-Baptise Pater, were chosen by Adolf Hitler’s air force chief Hermann Goering for his personal collection. . . . . .”

“14,000 Latvians Form Human Chain to Deliver Books to New Library”

by Sarah Dougherty via “Global Post“

 

 

“On Saturday, about 14,000 people in Latvia’s capital formed a human chain of book lovers to kick off Riga’s year as a 2014 European Capital of Culture. The crowd braved icy temperatures to pass library books — by hand — from the old National Library to the new building 1.2 miles (2 km) away. As you can see from this video, there was much dancing and rejoicing:

According to the AFP, Saturday’s event recalled 1989 Baltic Way, a peaceful demonstration by citizens of the Baltics to demand independence from the Soviet Union. On Aug. 23, 1989, some 2 million people joined hands to create a massive human chain. They stretched 370 miles (600 km) and linked the Baltic capitals of Vilnius (Lithuania), Riga (Latvia) and Tallinn (Estonia). Within two years, all three countries were independent. . . . .”