LOOTED LEGACY

Jewish Heirs Sue the Met for Buying a Van Gogh Looted by Nazis

A Jewish couple, Hedwig and Frederick Stern, bought the painting, Olive Picking, in 1935 before fleeing Germany with their six children the following year.

The heirs of a Jewish couple are suing the Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Greek foundation, claiming their family’s van Gogh painting was stolen by Nazis and later sold to the museum. The suit alleges the heirs’ family members, Hedwig and Frederick Stern, bought the painting, Olive Picking, in 1935 before fleeing Germany with their six children the following year and leaving the painting behind. The artwork was eventually sold, but the Nazis confiscated the proceeds, the lawsuit claims. The painting was transferred from buyer to buyer until it eventually surfaced at the Met in 1956, when the museum acquired it for $125,000. It was later sold to Greek shipping magnate Basil Goulandris and is now displayed at the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation in Athens. “Rousseau and the Met knew or should have known that the painting had probably been looted by Nazis,” the Stern heirs’ lawyers claim. The Met has denied any knowledge of Nazi involvement in the painting’s history, either before it was acquired or when it was later sold.