The heirs of a Jewish couple who fled Nazi Germany are demanding the return of Vincent van Gogh's "The Olive Pickers" and seeking damages from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The lawsuit, filed Monday in New York, alleges that both the Met and Greece's Goulandris Foundation deliberately concealed the painting's dubious wartime provenance.
The disputed masterpiece, painted by Van Gogh in 1889 during the final year of his life, currently hangs in the Goulandris Foundation in Athens, established by a prominent Greek shipping and collecting family. However, the painting's journey to its current location involved what the plaintiffs describe as Nazi spoliation and subsequent institutional cover-ups.
In 1936, Hedwig and Frederick Stern fled Munich for the United States to escape Nazi persecution, leaving behind several artworks including the stunning Van Gogh painting. According to the heirs' attorneys, Nazi authorities prohibited the export of the work but authorized its sale to an art dealer, then diverted the proceeds – constituting a form of theft under wartime conditions.
During World War II, the painting resurfaced in the United States as part of the collection belonging to wealthy industrialist Vincent Astor. The Metropolitan Museum subsequently acquired the work in 1956 for $125,000. However, two decades later, the Met quietly sold the painting, which the Stern heirs interpret as an admission of guilt regarding the work's questionable origins.
The lawsuit specifically targets the museum's former curator, described as well-versed in Nazi looting practices, who allegedly could not have been ignorant of the painting's true provenance. The Goulandris Foundation, whose founders purchased the work from the Met, is also named in the suit for allegedly obscuring "the Stern family's ownership of the painting from 1935 to 1938."
The heirs are seeking both the painting's return and compensation equivalent to "the value that [the Met] derived from possessing the painting from 1956 to 1972 and for the proceeds it received upon its sale." This legal action follows a previous attempt in 2022 that was dismissed when a California court declared itself incompetent to hear the case.
The Metropolitan Museum had previously defended its good faith in the matter while expressing openness to further examination of the purchase and resale circumstances. The institution insisted that the painting's origin "was only known several decades after it left the collection," explaining that it disposed of the work to fund other acquisitions.
Meanwhile, the Goulandris Foundation's attorney rejected the claims entirely, denouncing what they characterized as "misleading and incomplete allegations." The foundation maintains its position despite the renewed legal challenge and mounting evidence presented by the plaintiffs.
The lawsuit reveals that Hedwig Stern, who died in 1986, spent years searching for Van Gogh's olive trees, which the artist painted while capturing the trembling heat of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Her persistent efforts to recover the family's lost artwork underscore the lasting impact of Nazi art theft on survivors and their descendants, highlighting ongoing issues surrounding restitution of looted cultural treasures.
