Boston Museum to List Possible Nazi-Linked Art

The Museum of Fine Arts is joining other major museums in publishing lists of paintings in their collections that may have been plundered by the Nazis during World War II.

The museum said Friday its list would include about 12 to 15 paintings. It said it still has questions about the paintings’ histories and hopes the public can help.

“We think it’s the right thing to do,” museum director Malcolm Rogers said. “The truth is, we’ve taken our research so far. Now is the time to bring these paintings into the public domain. The answers may not lie within museum walls.”

The museum identified the paintings by reviewing the times and places when the works changed hands or whether they passed through the hands of people implicated in Holocaust-era looting.

Similar announcements have been made in recent weeks by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Smithsonian Institution, which runs the National Gallery of Art, said this month it would publish a list by the end of this year.

The World Jewish Congress, which has worked for the return of Holocaust victims’ assets from banks, insurers and art museums, had pushed museums to release information on the histories of pieces in their collection.

“We welcome the spirit of openness and cooperation,” said Elan Steinberg, the group’s executive director. “We’re trying to achieve justice, or more precisely only a measure of justice, because it’s 50 years too late.”

The group estimates about 200 of the nation’s 750 art museums might hold art plundered from victims of the Nazis.