Ante Topić Mimara was a Croatian art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

 collector

Collection (museum)

A museum is distinguished by a collection of often unique objects that forms the core of its activities for exhibitions, education, research, etc. This differentiates it from an archive or library, where the contents may be more paper-based, replaceable and less exhibition oriented...

 and benefactor. He donated his collection of more than 3,700 works of art from prehistory

Prehistoric art

In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other methods of record-keeping, or it makes significant contact with another...

 to the 20th century

20th century art

20th-century art and what it became known as — modern art — really began with modernism in the late 19th century. Nineteenth-century movements of Post Impressionism and Art Nouveau led to the first twentieth-century art movements of Fauvism in France and Die Brücke in Germany. Fauvism in Paris...

 to the National Museum of Serbia

National Museum of Serbia

The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 and Mimara Museum

Mimara Museum

The Mimara Museum is an art museum in the city of Zagreb, Croatia. It is situated at the Roosevelt Square, housing the collection by Wiltrud and Ante Topić Mimara...

 in Zagreb

Zagreb

Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...

. Most of masterpieces of Italian Collection and Dutch Collection in National Museum of Serbia

National Museum of Serbia

The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 were donated by Mimara.

In post-war years, Mimara was a consultant to the Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

n military mission in Berlin and Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, where he worked on returning the plundered works of art to Yugoslavia. He sold the Cloisters Cross

Cloisters Cross

The Cloisters Cross, also referred to as the Bury St. Edmunds Cross, is an unusually complex 12th century ivory Romanesque altar cross in The Cloisters, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The cross is carved from walrus ivory and measures 22 5/8 x 14 1/4 in...

 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, and is vividly described by Thomas Hoving

Thomas Hoving

Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...

, who made the acquisition, in his book on the work.

Controversy

Several highly respected art historians and contemporaries of Ante Topić Mimara claim that he appears to have stolen many of the items in his art collection while working for the Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

n military at the World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

art collection point.