Painting Abandoned to Nazis Is Returned

A German museum returned a stolen painting Monday to a family that had fled to Britain from Nazi rule, highlighting an international campaign to restore looted works of art.

“We believe this sets an important precedent for all museums holding looted art,” Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, told a news conference at Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts, where the painting was on loan.

The commission played a major role in the return of Leopold von Kalckreuth’s 1898 triptych “The Three Stages of Life” to its rightful owners, the descendants of a Catholic family of Jewish origin that escaped to Britain when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938.

The director general of the Bavarian State Collections, Reinhold Baumstark, told the news conference that the Neue Pinakothek museum in Munich acquired the painting from an Austrian countess in 1942 without knowing its origin.

“For me, it was quite clear that this picture does not belong to the gallery in a moral sense. I must apologize for this late decision, but I don’t think it is too late,” said Baumstark. “I am glad justice has prevailed over so many acts of injury.”

The oil on canvas was turned over to Ernest and Marietta Glanville. Their refugee mother, Elizabeth Glanville, had tried from 1948 until her death in 1983 to recover the work, which had been a wedding gift from her parents.

Museums around the world are taking a closer look at works that may have been illegally taken from their owners during the Nazi era.