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Not actual painting
In our coverage about the second instance of grand theft arto to go down in a French museum this month, I made a passing reference to the Nazis being the most devastating and prolific band of thieves in the European art world. Now a newly-filed lawsuit is here to back up my claim. The descendants of Hedwig and Frederick Stern — a Jewish couple who bought the Vincent van Gogh oil painting Olive Picking in 1935, but were then forced by the Nazis to leave it behind when they fled Germany in 1936 — are suing NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for their purchase of the work in 1956 (for $125,000). While the Met didn’t buy the painting directly from the Nazis, the Stern family alleges that the museum “knew, or should have known” of the work’s ill-begotten origins. And to make the case even more complicated, the Met hasn’t even owned the painting in over 50 years, though the current owners are named in the lawsuit as well.
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 painting 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 the 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.”
Superfluous details first: I heartily applaud Basil & Elise Goulandris for spinning their initials into the BEG Foundation. It works on so many levels. Second set of kudos goes to the Met, because that is one expertly crafted statement in response to the lawsuit. They acknowledge the upsetting circumstances surrounding the painting’s provenance, then thread the needle of not admitting to any wrongdoing without also attacking the Stern family. BEG wasn’t so delicate, issuing a haughty comment about the California lawsuit being dismissed and their expectation that this one will be as well. I’m not qualified to speak to the legality of who the rightful owners are, but I think the morality is clear. BEG has had the painting for 50 years; they should return it to the Sterns. Likewise, I don’t know what the law has to say about the Met’s culpability for purchasing the piece in 1956. The info about Rousseau being an expert on Nazi-looting is damning, but is the Met really the villain here?
I have no answers, only a suggestion if you want to dive deeper into the topic. A few years ago I read The Rape of Europa, a hefty tome that was equal parts riveting and revolting in its catalog of the damage the Nazis did to art across the continent. (The book was also adapted into an excellent documentary of the same name.) So much has still not yet been recovered, while pieces that are found then often go through contentious litigation (see above). Maybe I should have considered more seriously a career as an Indiana Jones for Nazi-looted art. Only in my case, the name would be California Cohen.