Couple told to surrender Pissarro stolen by Nazis

FRANCE: A French court yesterday ordered an American couple to return a painting by Camille Pissarro, the Impressionist master, to the heirs of the Jewish collector from whom it was looted by the Nazis. Bruce and Robbi Toll bought the 1887 gouache Picking Peas in good faith, paying almost $US800,000 at auction in New York 22 years ago. During a bitter legal battle, Toll, 74, said he was unaware that the work, now worth millions of dollars, had been seized during World War II from Simon Bauer, who made his fortune in the shoe industry. Jean-Jacques Bauer, his grandson, 87, argued that the couple must have known because they had claimed to be specialists and the painting was included in an official list of artworks looted during the occupation. - Telegraph Group