The Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE) is an international, expert and non-profit representative body which researches, identifies and recovers looted property on behalf of families, communities and institutions worldwide. 

Since it was set up in 1999, CLAE has been instrumental in achieving the restitution of over 3,000 Nazi looted objects. It has provided expertise to museums, libraries and the art trade in Europe and the USA particularly in provenance research and family tracing, and has negotiated new policies and procedures with European governments enabling the return of many Nazi looted works of art.  

  

Landscape with Smokestacks by Edgar Degas, looted from the Gutmann family of Heemstede, Holland.

This site provides examples of the Commission's cases, news stories about the Commission's work and details of the international principles which the Commission monitors and promotes.

For comprehensive information about all aspects of Nazi looting, the Commission created a Central Registry of Information.  This contains information and documentation from 49 countries, including laws and policies, reports and publications, archival records and research resources, current cases and useful websites. 

The Central Registry provides an up-to-date archive of news stories and an object database containing details of over 25,000 objects of all kinds, looted, missing and/or identified from over fifteen countries.

CLAE is mandated to represent the European Council of Jewish Communities (ECJC) and the Conference of European Rabbis (CER).

© copyright Commission for Looted Art 2007