Jamaica Gleaner

France to return Nazi-looted Klimt to rightful Jewish heirs

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THE FRENCH government announced on Monday that it will return a Nazi-looted Gustav Klimt landscape painting to its rightful owners more than 80 years after it was stolen from a Jewish family in Austria in 1938.

The colourful 1905 oil work by the Austrian symbolist painter titled ‘Rosebushes under the Trees’ has been hanging in Paris’ Musee d’Orsay museum for decades.

French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin told a Paris news conference that “the decision to return a major work from the public collection­s illustrate­s our commitment to the duty of justice and reparation visà-vis plundered families.”

The oil work will be returned to the family of Nora Stiasny, a Holocaust victim who was dispossess­ed during a forced sale in August 1938.

Bachelot-Narquin 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 French government-led investigat­ions on the issue.

“It is in recent years that the true origin of the painting has been establishe­d,” she said, adding that it was “the only Gustav Klimt painting owned by France”.

“‘Rosebushes under the Trees’” is a testament to the lives that a criminal will have stubbornly sought to eliminate.”

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 of hanging heirlooms that remain unclaimed.

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