Jewish heirs sue Met over van Gogh painting stolen by Nazis

The Met insists it only learned of the painting’s origin decades after selling it.

By World Israel News Staff

The heirs of a Jewish couple forced to flee Nazi Germany during World War II are suing the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York, claiming that the museum sold a looted Vincent van Gogh painting once owned by their family.

According to the lawsuit, Hedwig and Frederick Stern purchased van Gogh’s Women Picking Olives in 1935. Three years later, the couple and their six children fled to the United States.

The Nazis then looted priceless items from their Munich home, including the painting.

“In the decades since the end of the Second World War, this Nazi-looted painting has been repeatedly and secretly trafficked, purchased and sold in and through New York,” attorneys representing the Stern family said in a statement.

The work changed hands several times before being acquired by the Met. The museum later sold the painting to Greek shipping magnate Basil Goulandris, reportedly profiting from the sale.

The artwork is now displayed at a museum in Athens, having been donated through a charity initiative founded by Goulandris and his wife.

The Stern family alleges that the Met failed to conduct due diligence on the painting’s origin and likely knew it had been looted by the Nazis.

The family’s lawyers specifically fingered then-Met curator Theodore Rousseau Jr., an expert in Nazi-looted art, accusing him of failing to flag the transaction as suspicious.

“Rousseau and the Met knew or should have known that the painting had probably been looted by Nazis,” the attorneys charged. “Rousseau took no action to assure himself or the Met of anything about the painting’s transfers from or within Germany during the war.”

The Stern heirs filed a similar lawsuit in 2022, which was dismissed. An appeal of that decision was also denied.

In a statement, the Met said there was no indication the painting had been looted.

“At no time during the Met’s ownership of the painting was there any record that it had once belonged to the Stern family – indeed, that information did not become available until several decades after the painting left the museum’s collection,” a Met spokesperson said.