The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is being sued by the heirs of a Jewish couple over a Vincent van Gogh oil painting they say was looted by the Nazis.
The suit alleges the couple, Hedwig and Frederick Stern, bought the painting, Olive Picking, in 1935, the year before they were forced to flee their home in Munich.
It argues that the Met, which bought the artwork in 1956 for $125,000 before selling it to a Greek shipping magnate in 1972, “knew, or should have known”, the painting was probably looted. The Stern heirs are now seeking the painting’s return and damages.
“In the decades since the end of world war two, this Nazi-looted painting has been repeatedly and secretly trafficked, purchased and sold in and through New York,” alleges the suit filed this week in federal district court in Manhattan, which was first reported by the New York Times.
The Stern family fled Munich and went to California with their six children in 1936 as a result of Nazi persecution, but were prevented from taking the artwork, painted by the Dutch post-impressionist in 1889, according to the complaint.
“Before the family’s emigration, the Nazi government declared the painting to be ‘German cultural property’ and prohibited the Sterns from bringing the painting (and others in their collection) with them abroad. After obtaining permission from a Nazi official, a ‘trustee’ appointed by the Nazis sold the painting in Germany on the Sterns’ behalf, but the proceeds of the sale were deposited in a ‘blocked account,’ which the Nazis later confiscated,” lawyers for the heirs said in the filing.
In 1948, or shortly after, the painting arrived in New York and was bought by Vincent Astor, one of America’s wealthiest people, whose wife, Brooke Astor, served on the board of trustees of the Met from 1964 until 1983. It was later sold through a gallery to the Met, which sold it to Basil Goulandris and his wife, Elise, in 1972.
The Greek couple established in 1979 the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation (BEG), which operates a museum in Athens where the painting is on display.
The foundation and a surviving nephew of Basil Goulandris are named as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges the family “and its related entities have hidden and obscured the painting’s ownership and location from plaintiff”.
“To this day, the Goulandris defendants continue to conceal how and when the BEG came into possession of the painting; the Stern family’s ownership of the painting from 1935 to 1938; and the facts that the Nazis looted the painting from the Stern family, coerced the Sterns into selling it via a Nazi-appointed agent, and confiscated the proceeds of the sale,” according to the court papers.
The Stern heirs filed a similar complaint in California in 2022 but it was dismissed in 2024. An appeal was dismissed in May.
The lawsuit argues the Met’s purchase of the painting was approved by Theodore Rousseau Jr, the museum’s curator of European paintings and “one of the world’s foremost experts on Nazi art looting”.
“Rousseau and the Met knew or should have known that the painting had probably been looted by Nazis,” the court filing alleges.
The Met said in a statement that it “takes seriously its longstanding commitment to address Nazi-era claims”.
“At no time during the Met’s ownership of the painting was there any record that it had once belonged to the Stern family – indeed, that information did not become available until several decades after the painting left the museum’s collection,” a spokesperson said.
“The Met’s sale of the Olive Picking met the museum’s strict criteria for deaccessioning – specifically, it was recorded that the work was deemed to be of lesser quality than other works of the same type in the collection. While the Met respectfully stands by its position that this work entered the collection and was deaccessioned legally and well within all guidelines and policies, the museum welcomes and will consider any new information that comes to light.”
William Charron, a lawyer representing the BEG, said: “The Goulandris Foundation is a highly prestigious organization in Athens. The attempt to sue and smear the foundation and the Goulandris family in the US upon misleadingly incomplete allegations was previously dismissed, twice. We are confident it will be again.”
