UK museum to surrender Courbet painting stolen by Nazis

Agencies | London                                                  

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com    

A British university museum has agreed to return a 19th-century painting by French artist Gustave Courbet, which was seized by the Nazis, to the descendants of its original Jewish owner.

Cambridge University’s Fitzwilliam Museum, in eastern England, is acting on the advice of a government-appointed expert panel, which investigates claims for Nazi loot. For more than a year, the panel probed the history of “La Ronde Enfantine”, an oil landscape dating from about 1862 that has been lying in the museum’s storage.

In a report published Tuesday, it concluded that the evidence supported the restitution claim made by the heirs of its one-time owner, Robert Bing, a French Resistance hero during World War II.

“This is a deliberate seizure by the German authorities from a Jewish citizen of France with the diversion of the work of art to Nazi leaders,” the 19-page review stated. “No other reason for seizure other than the Jewishness of Mr Bing has appeared to explain this seizure.” It added that the museum had “cared for the work so that it can now be restored to the heirs of the original owners”.