The Glory or Shame of the Mauritshuis?

It's the masterpieces that make a museum great, but the unknown surprises, the stuff you didn't expect, are also essential.

For example, a painting the Mauritshuis puts on the wall, but doesn't bother to supply with an image on its website:

François Bunel II (attributed to)  
title    The confiscation of the contents of a painter's studio   
period    c.1590?   
material    panel   
dimensions    28 x 46.5 cm   
inventory number    875   

Here it is, and here is a translation of the text (click on the "translate" button).

It's a little hard to read the image, but it shows the contents of an artist's studio being seized (for debt?) by porters schlepping off wrapped-up paintings, using wonderful carrying frames; the text details the paintings confiscated from the Jewish dealer Goudstikker by the Nazis and still in public collections.


The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco recently showed a selection of works from the Goudstikker collection.

Has the Mauritshuis been awarded The Confiscation, I asked the museum's Head of Public Affairs, who had earlier this month replied to my query about the terrible lighting of View of Delft et al. 

She replied:
In answer to your question regarding The Confiscation, the answer is that at this moment we simply don’t have good quality images of all our artwork. We’re currently working on a project to digitalize our collection, as to ensure that in the future the whole collection is also available online.
   With regards to the Goudstikker collection; it’s only the restitution commission who can answer that question, not the Mauritshuis.


If you search the website for the museum's holdings, 1575-1600, 24 paintings show up. The only one without an image is The Confiscation.

How ironic for a painting about confiscation.