Itongadol.- \’Profil Bleu Devant la Cheminée\’ seized in 1941 from French gallery owner, collector Paul Rosenberg.
The Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (HOK), a museum in Norway, will return a Nazi-looted painting by Henri Matisse to its owners, the museum said in a statement this week.
The painting, "Profil Bleu Devant la Cheminée" (Woman in Blue in Front of a Fireplace), dated 1937, was seized by the Nazis on September 5, 1941 from French gallery owner and collector Paul Rosenberg.
Following numerous claims of restitution by Rosenberg\’s heirs and an extensive investigation into the painting\’s origins, the museum has decided to remove the painting from display and return it to its rightful owners.
"Henie Onstad Kunstsenter’s extensive investigation of the case has led to the decision that the return is justified, and HOK’s board has decided to return the painting without further conditions," the museum\’s board of directors chairman, Halvor Stenstadvold, said.
The painting was unlawfully dispossessed after Rosenberg and his family fled Europe to New York in 1940 by the special Nazi looting agency the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR).
In 1942, it was used in trade by representatives of Nazi leader Hermann Goering and was acquired by a Parisian art dealer. The dealer, Gustav Rochlitz, was convicted in 1947 by a French Tribunal for trading illicitly acquired property during the Nazi occupation.