“‘There are plans to legally restrict the export of some paintings from Germany, and so far the proposed policy is not working out well. Collectors are rushing to take their loans off museum walls and get them out of the country, or hold them incognito.

The law would apply to works of historical importance more than fifty years old, worth more than 150,000 euros, and judged by regional boards to be of historic importance. It is interesting which works may fall under this designation:

In one interview, she [Germany’s culture minister] raised the prospect that foreign works could be classified as national treasures. For example, she said the Warhol silk-screens of Elvis Presley and Marlon Brando that were sold by the state-owned casino were ’emblematic’ of the collecting history of the Rhineland.”

Godwin’s law notwithstanding, it makes you wonder if the new film about the recovery of Klimt’s “Woman in Gold” painting had anything to do with this — Warhol isn’t a noted German artist, and The King and The Godfather aren’t known for contributions to Teutonic culture. Perhaps older paintings acquired in the early 1940s, are “emblematic of the collecting history of former WWI German aces.” So, is this a case of “We stole it fair and square back then, and you can’t have it back”?