QUICK TAKES - Sept. 5, 2009

The Netherlands will return 13 paintings in national museums to the heirs of Jewish collectors persecuted by the Nazis, the Culture Ministry said.

Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk said he would follow a recommendation by the Restitutions Committee to hand back 12 paintings, including Jan van Goyen’s “Village in Winter Time,” to the heirs of Hans Ludwig Larsen. The government also will return Thomas de Keyser’s “Portrait of a Man,” currently housed in a museum in Gouda, to the heirs of a Jewish collector named Richard Semmel, Plasterk said.

Larsen’s loss of the paintings was “due to circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime,” the Restitutions Committee said. Semmel probably sold his picture to fund his escape, it said.