The French government said that it will return a Gustav Klimt landscape painting that the Nazis stole in 1938 from to the family of Nora Stiasny, a Holocaust victim from a prominent Austrian family who was forced to sell the painting in August 1938. The rightful owners.
Stiasny and her famiy were deported to occupdied poland and murdered n 1942.
The painting has for many years been at the Musée d’Orsay museum in Paris, which said it had investigated the painting’s provenance when it acquired “Rosebushes” in 1980. “The decision to return a major work from the public collections illustrates our commitment to the duty of justice and reparation vis-à-vis plundered families,” French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said.
Bachelot said that French authorities hadn’t initially identified the painting as being stolen by the Nazis, and its provenance only recently came to light after they made investigations into the issue.
Thousands of artworks looted by the Nazis across Europe wound up in French museums after the allies defeated Nazi Germany in 1945. Though many have been returned, French authorities have stepped up efforts in recent years to find homes for the scores that remain unclaimed.
