A review by benfast
The Orpheus Clock: The Search for My Family's Art Treasures Stolen by the Nazis by Simon Goodman

3.0

This was an interesting story of looted art from the Second World War and how a family has tried to get it back (or get some restitution) in the early 2000s. It is similar to The Woman in Gold story that was made into a film, but maybe a bit less dramatic and the results more ended up with sales of the art. I think because of that film, I was expecting one major piece to take centre stage, or that they would have the ability to keep these major pieces, but more often they ran into issues where little could be done to get the pieces "back" and they didn't have the money to continue legal proceedings or keep the pieces correctly anyways so ended up selling them to cover costs. I found that somewhat disappointing. The Orpheus clock is seemingly one of the more minor and later pieces covered, so was confusing as to why it was the title of the book. Without the constant reminders that this collection was stolen by Nazis from a Jewish family during the Holocaust, I sometimes found myself not caring what happened to one rich family fighting another rich family (though Goodman keeps reminding the readers that his family is no longer rich - even if later he says the family actually had a lot of resources still after the war).