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– Nora Stiasny, an Austrian Jew, inherited that from Gustav Klimt Roses under the trees from her uncle, but was forced by the Nazis to sell it in 1938 for much less than it was worth. She was eventually deported to a concentration camp in Poland, where she died in 1942. But now the painting is by the Austrian artist (Rose bushes under the trees) is being returned to her family, the BBC reports. France bought the artwork for the Musée d’Orsay in 1980 without knowing its history, but has since learned that it was looted. French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot says the only choice was to return it to its rightful owners.
“The decision we made is of course a difficult one. It results in taking a masterpiece from the national collections, the only Gustav Klimt painting that France owned,” she says. “But this decision is necessary, essential. Eighty-three years after the forced sale of this painting by Nora Stiasny, this is the completion of an act of justice.” France24 reports that the painting’s interim owner was a Nazi sympathizer and art dealer who died in the 1960s; the Canadian says artist Philipp Häusler, a member of the Nazi party, bought the painting from Stiasny. (The Nazis looted this Klimt painting.It was also returned and later sold for $ 40.4 million.)