France to return Klimt painting 'sold' during Nazi era

15 March 2021 - 20:38 By Geert De Clercq and Matthieu Protard
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French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot looks at the painting "Rosebushes under the Trees" by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, during an event to announce the restitution of the artwork to a Jewish family from which it had been despoiled in 1938, at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France on March 15 2021.
French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot looks at the painting "Rosebushes under the Trees" by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, during an event to announce the restitution of the artwork to a Jewish family from which it had been despoiled in 1938, at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, France on March 15 2021.
Image: Alain Jocard/Pool via REUTERS NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES

France will return a masterpiece by Gustav Klimt to the heirs of its owner more than 80 years after she was forced to sell it in the Nazi era, Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot said on Monday.

The original owner - Nora Stiasny, from a well-known Austrian Jewish family - had to sell the painting "Rosiers sous les Arbres" at a knock-down price to survive financially after the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Bachelot said.

She was deported to Poland in 1942 and died the same year.

The art dealer, a Nazi sympathiser, held onto it until his death in the 1960s and France, unaware of its history, eventually bought it at auction for the Musee d'Orsay in Paris in 1980, the minister added.

"This decision to return a major artwork from the public collections illustrates our commitment to justice and to reparation for the looted families", Bachelot said

Stiasny had inherited the painting from her uncle, Austrian industrialist and art collector Viktor Zuckerkandl, who bought the work in 1911, Bachelot said. Reuters


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