🔗 Share this article

The heirs of a Jewish pair have initiated legal proceedings against The Met, alleging that a the Dutch artist oil painting was seized by Nazi forces.

Origins of the Dispute

According to the court documents, the Stern couple purchased the piece, titled Gathering Olives, in 1935. Just one year later, they were forced to flee their home in Munich, Germany prior to World War II.

The suit contends that the museum, which purchased the masterpiece in 1956 for a significant sum, ought to have been aware it was almost certainly confiscated property. The descendants are now demanding the repatriation of the canvas along with compensation.

Following WWII, this plundered piece has been often and discreetly exchanged, bought and sold in and through New York, states the legal filing.

The Sterns' Escape

The Stern family fled from the city of Munich to California in the late 1930s with their large family due to Nazi persecution. Yet, they were prevented from taking the painting, which was created by the Dutch post-impressionist in 1889.

Before they left, the regime designated the artwork as a German cultural asset and banned the Sterns from exporting it. After obtaining permission from a Nazi official, a trustee assigned by the Nazis auctioned the artwork on the family's behalf. However, the funds from the auction were held in a frozen account, which the Nazis later seized.

Later Transactions

Around 1948, or not long after, the canvas was brought to the United States and was acquired by a wealthy American, among the richest individuals in the US. Subsequently, it was exchanged through a commercial outlet to the museum, which then passed it on to prominent shipowner Basil Goulandris and his wife, Elise, in 1972.

The Goulandris pair founded the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation in the late 1970s, which manages a institution in Athens, Greece where the masterpiece is currently shown.

Claims and Defenses

BEG and a family member of Goulandris are identified in the suit. The filing claims that the defendants and its associated organizations have hidden and obscured the painting's ownership and current place from the family.

Even now, the Goulandris Defendants continue to hide the circumstances the foundation came into ownership of the piece; the Stern family's ownership of the masterpiece from 1935 to 1938; and the reality that the Third Reich stole the artwork from the Stern family, forced the Sterns into parting with it via a Nazi-appointed agent, and seized the funds of the deal.

Prior Cases

The family filed a comparable case in CA in recently, but it was rejected in the following years. An further action was also dismissed in May 2025.

Museum's Response

The complaint argues that the Met's purchase of the painting was approved by a curator, the Met's authority of European paintings and a leading authority on art theft during the Nazi era. Rousseau and the Met knew or should have known that the Painting had almost certainly been stolen by the regime.

The Met said in a statement that it is committed to its historical dedication to handle claims from the Nazi period.

An official remarked: Never during the institution's custody of the painting was there any evidence that it had earlier been possessed to the Stern family – in fact, that information did not become available until several decades after the painting left the Met's possession.

The institution's deaccessioning of the Van Gogh met the museum's strict criteria for disposal – namely, it was noted that the artwork was judged to be of lesser quality than additional artworks of the same type in the inventory. While the museum respectfully stands by its position that this artwork entered the inventory and was removed lawfully and well within all rules and regulations, the institution welcomes and will consider any new information that is discovered.

Goulandris Statement

Legal counsel acting for the foundation stated: The institution is a renowned institution in Greece. The action to take legal action against the institution and the Goulandris family in the United States upon misleadingly incomplete allegations was previously dismissed, multiple times. We are confident it will be once more.