Rescuing Rembrandt

How Allied soldiers and scholars saved cultural treasures from destruction and the Nazis

September 06, 2009|Jonathan Lopez

During the darkest days of World War II, a ragtag band of British and American art scholars braved the battlefields of Europe to rescue thousands of cultural treasures from Nazi pillage and the collateral damage of armed conflict. These “monuments men’’ propped up collapsing buildings; repaired battle-scarred frescoes and mosaics; guided Allied bombers away from world-renowned libraries and cathedrals; and tracked down the secret hiding places of masterworks by artists such as Rembrandt, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. But today their story - one of the grandest yarns of the Greatest Generation - remains little known outside the art world.

Two new books aim to remedy that situation. “The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History,’’ by writer and documentary film producer Robert Edsel, offers a stirring treatment, geared to the broadest of popular audiences. “The Venus Fixers: The Remarkable Story of the Allied Soldiers Who Saved Italy’s Art During World War II,’’ by journalist Ilaria Dagnini Brey, presents a more nuanced account - much of it based on archival research - but with a narrower focus, dealing exclusively with operations on the Italian peninsula.

Edsel, author of “Rescuing Da Vinci,’’ a pictorial history of World War II art recovery efforts, approaches his subject with an enthusiasm that is likely all the keener for having been reached by a circuitous path. Now 53 years old, the Texas-born Edsel earned a substantial fortune at a young age in oil exploration, an industry from which he retired in 1995. Soon thereafter, he found a new purpose in life while reading Lynn Nicholas’s then-recent book “The Rape of Europa,’’ which has since become the standard work in English on Nazi art looting. Fascinated by the topic, Edsel tracked down Nicholas and offered to finance a documentary based on her research. The film, narrated by Joan Allen, appeared to wide acclaim in 2007.

In “The Monuments Men’’ (written in collaboration with Bret Witter), Edsel strives to give his heroes the two-fisted, John Wayne treatment he feels they deserve. Structured as a series of swift cinematic scenes, the book is at times overly theatrical - there are, for instance, too many interior monologues purporting to narrate people’s thoughts - but it is nonetheless a difficult work to put down.