of 300 kilograms of gold. After the war, the Belgian state claimed the 20 works back as looted art. Only half of the works were recovered. Renders commenced judicial proceedings against the Belgian state claiming that he had never been paid for the paintings. The truth was, however, revealed when letters were discovered in the archive of Goering that showed that Renders had negotiated with Goering on the sale of his Gothic sculptures. More controversy and accusations of forgery The role played by Renders as an art collector and his relationship with Jef Van der Veken were finally questioned at the end of the 20th century. The discussion was initiated as a result of studies on three of the paintings that had belonged to the Renders Collection, had been sold to Goering and were subjected to modern scientific research decades after the war. The paintings are referred to as the Renders Magdalena, the Renders Madonna and the Renders Man of Sorrows. The Renders Magdalena The Renders Magdalena is a portrait of Mary Magdalene, that was claimed to be a copy of the right panel of the Braque Triptych by Rogier van der Weyden, the original of which hangs in The Louvre. The Renders Magdalena started as a bad old copy, which was acquired by a collector in Antwerp around 1885 and then bequeathed to the museum of Ghent in 1914. The museum refused the painting because of its mediocrity and put it up for sale in Ghent in 1920. It was bought by an antique dealer in Dendermonde from whom Renders acquired it. Renders asked Van der Veken to restore the painting. When the painting reappeared 6 years later at an exhibition in Bern, the painting had been drastically changed. What had appeared a mediocre copy had become a masterpiece that was attributed to the entourage of Hans Memling. However, not all contemporary art experts were impressed by this metamorphosis and they raised doubts about the work's authenticity. Acquired by Goering from Renders, the panel was brought to Spain by Alois Miedl, an agent of Goering, after World War II. In 1966 he sold the panel to a Scandinavian collector. When the collector died, his heirs wanted to have an expert opinion on its value and in 2004 they sent the panel to the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage in Brussels. Based on its research findings, the Institute concluded that