---
title: Italy Moves to Create a Restitution Panel That Could Return Nazi-Looted Art From Its Own Museums
description: Italy's Bill 2834 would set up a five-member panel to return art seized under the 1938 racial laws and Nazi occupation, ruling on claims within 180 days.
author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-11-04T11:00:00.072Z
updated: 2026-11-04T11:00:00.088Z
canonical: https://thequantumoflight.com/article/italy-nazi-looted-art-restitution-panel
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-27832843.webp
categories: Art & Festivals
content_type: News
region: Italy
publication: The Quantum of Light
---

Italy is preparing to set up a panel that could return art taken from Jewish families under Fascism and the Nazi occupation, including works that hang today in its own public museums. A bill before the Chamber of Deputies, known as C. 2834, would hand those decisions to an independent committee and remove the legal barriers that have kept such works in Italian collections for eight decades.

Federico Mollicone, the Brothers of Italy deputy who chairs the Chamber's culture committee, introduced the bill in March. He told The Art Newspaper that passing it would mean 'fulfilling a historic duty', and he wants it to become law within the current parliament, before a general election due by the end of 2027.

If it passes, Italy will join Germany, Austria, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, which created restitution bodies years ago. France set up its commission in 1999 and Britain its Spoliation Advisory Panel in 2000. In September, the Netherlands [agreed to return a Jan van Goyen that went into Hermann Göring's collection](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/van-goyen-mauritshuis-goudstikker-restitution) from the Mauritshuis to Marei von Saher, heir of the Jewish dealer Jacques Goudstikker.

## How the Italian Restitution Panel Would Work

The committee would have five members, one of them nominated by Italy's art police. It would examine the history of works confiscated, looted or sold under duress through racial persecution between 1933 and 1945, in public and private collections alike, and it would have to rule on each claim within 180 days.

Original owners and their heirs could bring a claim, and so could the Union of Italian Jewish Communities or any individual Jewish community. Where no living heir can be found, a returned work would go to the Jewish community in Italy.

The bill also changes two rules that have blocked families until now. Statutes of limitations would no longer stand in the way of a claim. A restitution decision would take a work out of the public domain and out of the protection of Italy's heritage code, so it could leave the country for good. Italian law treats works in State collections as inalienable, and the World Jewish Restitution Organization notes that the bill would set that principle aside for art looted from persecuted communities. Once parliament passes the bill, the government would have six months to put the system in place.

## Fascist Racial Laws and Wartime Seizures in Italy

Mussolini's racial laws of 1938 banned Jewish books, drove Jews out of public office and limited the property they could own. Seizures grew from 1943, after Italy signed an armistice with the Allies and Germany occupied the country and restored Mussolini to power. In 2001, the Anselmi commission, a government inquiry into the seizure of Jewish property in Italy, counted 7,847 seizure warrants issued up to April 1945.

Italy endorsed the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art in 1998 and the Terezín Declaration in 2009, but it never built a clear procedure to act on them. A 2024 report by the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the Claims Conference found that Italy had made only some progress in 25 years. Gideon Taylor, the organisation's president, said in July that 'families seeking the return of their cultural heritage in Italy have faced considerable resistance'.

## Disputed Paintings in Milan's Museums

Four disputed works are publicly known to hang in Italian museums. Katharina Hüls-Valenti, a researcher at the University of Parma, believes the real number could run to dozens, though she says nobody can be certain.

One is Édouard Manet's *Portrait de M. Arnaud à cheval* (1875) at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan. Hüls-Valenti says the family of the German painter Max Liebermann sold it in 1935, two years into Nazi rule, and it was donated to the gallery in 1958. Paola Zatti, the gallery's curator, disputes that the sale was forced.

Another is *Christ Carrying the Cross*, painted around 1508 to 1509 by Girolamo Romanino. Vichy France requisitioned it in 1941 from the family of Federico Gentili di Giuseppe, and the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan bought it in 1998. In 2011, United States authorities seized the painting while it was on loan to a museum in Florida, after the heirs asked them to act. Disputes such as these are the cases the new committee is designed to decide.

## What Happens Next in the Chamber of Deputies

The Chamber's culture committee began examining the bill on 19th May and heard evidence on 24th June. Livia Ottolenghi, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, gave the proposal her full support at that hearing. The World Jewish Restitution Organization welcomed it, while warning that the law will only work as well as its detailed mechanisms.

Lorenzo Casini, the lawyer who wrote a report on Italian public collections for the organisation, has suggested widening the committee's remit to manuscripts, books, archives and ceremonial objects. He has also said that money for provenance research, the digitisation of archives and the training of experts could follow once the law is passed. If you want to follow the bill, it sits with the culture committee of the Chamber of Deputies under the number C. 2834.

## Frequently Asked Questions

**Q: What are the 1998 Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art?**
The Washington Conference Principles are eleven non-binding guidelines that 44 governments agreed at a conference in Washington in December 1998. They ask countries to identify art confiscated by the Nazis and never returned, to open the relevant records and archives, to publicise such works so that pre-war owners and their heirs can come forward, and to reach just and fair solutions with them. The Terezín Declaration of 2009 renewed these commitments.

**Q: Is stolen art from World War II still missing?**
Yes. The Nazis looted about a fifth of Europe's art, and more than 100,000 items have still not been returned to their rightful owners, according to official estimates. Works taken during the war still surface in museums, private collections and auction rooms, and families continue to file claims more than 80 years later.

**Q: How does the restitution of Nazi-looted art work?**
A claim usually starts with provenance research, which traces who owned a work before, during and after the Nazi era. In countries with a restitution body, such as France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, a claimant or a museum can refer the case to a panel of experts, which examines the evidence and recommends whether the work should be returned or the family compensated. Elsewhere, families negotiate directly with the holder or go to court.

### More on Nazi-Looted Art

- [The Netherlands Will Return a Göring-Looted Van Goyen From the Mauritshuis to the Goudstikker Heir](https://thequantumoflight.com/article/van-goyen-mauritshuis-goudstikker-restitution)