National Gallery Will Return Painting Germans Took in 1941

The National Gallery of Art is returning a painting believed to have been stolen by the Germans sometime before 1941 from a Paris family’s collection.

The painting, “Still Life With Fruit and Game,” by Flemish artist Frans Snyders, depicts a large basket of colorful fruit on a red tablecloth surrounded by dead game, including birds and a small deer.

The museum is arranging to return the painting to the Stern family, which discovered the piece and the history of its ownership on the gallery’s Web site.

The gallery has been doing extensive World War II-era ownership research on the European art in its collection for three years, Director Earl A. Powell III said.

“We believe that full disclosure of all available information about works in the gallery’s collection is of vital importance,” Powell said.

Gallery spokeswoman Deborah Ziska said the Stern family did not want to be interviewed.

The painting was confiscated from the Stern collection in Paris and traded to one of the Nazis’ principal art dealers, Karl Haberstock, by Hermann Goering in 1941, according to the gallery’s research. Haberstock gave the painting to his friend Baron von Poellnitz, a Luftwaffe officer, by 1945.

The painting was purchased from von Poellnitz around 1968 by Herman Shickman. The National Gallery of Art received the painting in 1990 as a gift from Herman and Lila Shickman in honor of its 50th anniversary in 1991.

The Nazis assigned the code “ST” to the Stern collection and wrote the letters on the backs of the confiscated paintings. Archival documents refer to the Snyders painting “Still Life With Hares,” from the Stern collection with the code “ST11.”

The gallery’s painting has “ST” on it, and the mark is similar to the marks on other Stern pictures, officials said. But documents of the Stern painting refer to “hares,” whereas the animal in the gallery’s painting is a deer. Despite the discrepancies, gallery officials said they think there is enough evidence to hand over the painting.