Almost 70 years after it was sold under Nazi duress, a painting has been returned to the heirs of the original Jewish owner at the request of the current possessor.
The pencil drawing, known as Tiroler Bäuerin, by Adolf von Menzel, a nineteenth-century German artist known for his drawing and paintings, was owned before the Second World War by Alfred Sommerguth, a wealthy Jewish businessman.
The keen art-collector was forced to sell much of his collection in 1939 in Berlin. They included Dutch and Italian Renaissance masterpieces as well as French Impressionists.
In 1941, the then 82 year-old Mr Sommerguth fled with his wife, Gertrud, to Cuba via Portugal and eventually settled in New York, where he died 10 years later. His heirs have been in the process of recovering some of the original collection of more than 100 artworks.
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