Norwegian Museum Agrees to Return Looted Matisse
A Norwegian museum says it has agreed to return a Matisse once looted by Hermann Goering to the family of Jewish art dealer Paul Rosenberg.
The 1937 painting, Woman in Blue in Front of a Fireplace, has been among the highlights of the Henie Onstad Art Center near Oslo since the museum was established in 1968 through a donation by shipping magnate Niels Onstad and his wife, Olympic figure-skating champion Sonja Henie.
Now worth an estimated $20 million, the painting was taken by Goering after Rosenberg fled to New York in 1940, and sold to a Parisian art dealer later convicted of dealing in Nazi looted art. It was acquired from a different French gallery in 1950 by Onstad, who was apparently unaware of its provenance.
Source: Associated Press
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