France To Return Looted Nazi Artworks To Their Rightful Jewish Owners

France has agreed to the restitution of 15 artworks believed to be stolen or acquired using duress by the Nazis, including paintings by Gustav Klimt and Marc Chagall.

The bill, which was recently finalized, was voted on unanimously in the French National Assembly, and is expected to be approved in the Senate next month.

According to ARTnews, one of the pieces by Chagall, The Father, had been looted from Polish-Jewish musician David Cender, who emigrated to France in 1958. It was inducted as part of the country’s national collection in 1988. 

Nora Stiasny, an Austrian-Jewish resident, had inherited Klimt’s Rosiers sous les arbres (Rosebushes Under the Trees) after the death of her uncle in 1927.

She was forced to sell the painting, which features a cluster of leaves, flowers, and fruit, when the Nazis occupied Austria in 1938. 

It’s believed that the painting was acquired by Philipp Häusler, the then-director of the Vienna School of Applied Arts, who was part of the Nazi party. He had smuggled the work into Germany and held it as part of his personal collection till his death in 1966.

In accordance with the country’s law, France has to approve a bill to release an artwork from its national archives, certifying that it was indeed stolen cultural property.

Roselyne Bachelot, Minister of Culture, said that taking the art from the Jewish families was “the denial of the humanity, their memory, their memories.” 

“This decision to return a major artwork from the public collections illustrates our commitment to justice and to reparation for the looted families,” she added.

[via ARTnews, cover image via Gustav Klimt / Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)]