The supreme court will hear oral arguments on whether the dealers’ heirs can sue in US courts to retrieve the church reliquaries, known as the Guelph Treasure or Welfenschatz, from Germany. Named after the princely House of Guelph of Brunswick-Lüneburg and containing 42 objects made between the 11th and 15th centuries, the Guelph Treasure has since 1963 been on display in Berlin’s Museum of Decorative Arts. The collection includes a cross encrusted with rock crystals and bone fragments, supposedly of saints, brought back from the crusades. The plaintiffs are descendants of two men in the quartet of Jewish dealers who originally bought the Guelph Treasure for 7.5m reichsmark in 1929. The Guelph Treasure is a different story, the foundation says.

Source: The Guardian December 06, 2020 12:00 UTC