Stolen Cranach Painting To Be Sold
Lucas Cranach the Elder’s portrait of John Frederick the Magnanimous was the one painting stolen from his grandparents that Simon Goodman thought he might never recover. “It had completely disappeared,†says Goodman, who has spent 23 years searching for objects looted by the Nazis from his grandfather Fritz Gutmann, an illustrious Jewish banker with a vast art collection. But the masterpiece miraculously surfaced in a private collection in the US recently, and will be offered for sale on 19 April at Christie’s Old Masters Auction in New York. The auction house negotiated a confidential settlement between the current holders and the Goodman family. It is estimated to fetch between $1 million and $2 million.
