France to return Nazi-looted Klimt to rightful Jewish heirs

PARIS (AP) — The French government has announced that it is to return a Nazi-looted Gustav Klimt landscape painting to its rightful owners, eight decades after it was stolen from a Jewish family in Austria in 1938. The colorful 1905 oil work by the Austrian symbolist painter entitled “Rosebushes under the Trees” has been hanging in Paris’ Musee d’Orsay museum for decades. French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin told a Paris news conference Monday that “the decision to return a major work from the public collections illustrates our commitment to the duty of justice and reparation vis-à-vis plundered families.” The oil work will be returned to the family of Nora Stiasny, a Holocaust victim, who was dispossessed during a forced sale in August 1938.