LONDON -- Museums in Britain are nervously awaiting the results of the Internet publication of an official inventory of 350 works of art in British national collections whose provenance in the period between 1933 and 1945 is unclear. More than half belong to the National Gallery and the Tate, 109 and 80 paintings respectively. Although the directors of both institutions stressed that nothing had been positively identified as property stolen during the Nazi period, there is a distinct air of nervousness in their public statements and of the other gallery directors involved.
The government has made no commitment to return any suspect works or pay compensation, and the galleries themselves are legally barred from disposing of their collections. The return of artworks proven to have been stolen would require an act of Parliament and a huge reparations bill. A very sticky situation indeed since the works are not by minor artists but from the premier league.
The only collections that have nothing to fear are closed 19th-century private ones such as the Wallace Collection and that of Sir John Soane's Museum to which nothing has been added since their founder's demise.