5 missing masterpieces from World War II

Below is a list given by the Art Loss Register on the most valuable and famous artworks to have been lost or stolen during World War II.

Andreas Schlüter: The Amber Room, 18th Century (photo of reconstruction by Polly Gibson

Dubbed the "Eight Wonder of the World," this room was made with over six tons of amber and once belonged to the King of Prussia, Peter the Great. It's thought to have been looted during WWII by the Nazis and taken to the city of Königsberg, never to be seen again. There is however a reconstructed version in the Catherine Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Canaletto, Piazza Santa Margherita

This Canaletto lived in the private collection of Jacques Goudstikker, whose gallery was seized and purged shortly after he fled the Netherlands in 1940. Parts of the collection have been returned to Goudstikker's heirs since, but the hunt is still on for this one.

Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre, Twilight, 1897

This was part of a collection looted by the Nazis and subsequently sold through a Swiss art dealer in 1941. Though it's shown up in almost every decade after the war, says Hills, its current location is an enigma.

Raphael, Portrait of a Young Man, 1513/14

Regarded by art historians as Poland's most famous art loss from WWII, Portrait of a Young Man was taken from the Czartoryski's family collection in Krakow to be placed in Hitler's Fuhrer museum in 1939. It went missing at the end of the war, but unverified rumors suggest it was found in a Swiss bank vault last summer.

Vincent van Gogh, The Painter on the Road to Tarascon, 1888

Among van Gogh's most cherished pieces, this is thought to have burned when the Allied bombed the town of Magdeburg, setting alight the museum it was housed in.

(Internet Sources)