Michael Pantazzi is wrong and has no memory

Howdy!

In this article in today's Globe & Mail he is quoted as saying

"I don't know of any other instance of another painting from abroad being returned to the estate of the owner in Canada," said Michael Pantazzi, who retired last month as curator of European art at the National Gallery of Canada. Mr. Pantazzi is an authority on issues of art provenance. "This is the first incident where something has been recuperated that was outside Canada," he said in an interview from Ottawa.

Unfortunately for Mr. Pantazzi some of the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer are Canadian, and since you first need to posses a painting in order to sell it, and the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer was recently sold for $135 million (US), I can only assume that the Canadian heirs did have the painting returned to them prior to it becoming the most expensive painting in the world.