Who owns beauty ? World art and culture in our museums (4)

The Altarpiece of theMystic Lamb, painted on wood by the Van Eyck brothers in the 15th^century , is preserved in its original location in St. Banon's Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. This large-scale work has two sides, one closed and the other open, and was presented to the faithful on Sundays - on the latter, they could admire Christ the King between the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist, angels singing and playing music, and Adam and Eve. This jewel of the Flemish pictorial school, created for religious worship, has become one of the most stolen and "desired" objects in art history. TheMystic Lamb was the object of military appropriation during the French Revolution, for the first time when the central panels were seized by France, which occupied what is now Belgium. The rhetoric was one of liberated heritage. After the fall of Napoleon, these works were returned to St. Bavo's Cathedral. During the First World War, the Germans seized other panels, which were forcibly returned under the Treaty of Versailles. Finally, during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler ordered that the altarpiece be seized and stored in a castle in Bavaria. The Monuments Men recovered it and returned it to its place of origin, where it remains today, but in a musealized way, behind a secure glass case: it is no longer integrated into worship. The altarpiece has thus become a tourist attraction.