Museum returns Matisse work looted from the Nazis

The "Woman in blue in front of the fireplace", which was painted in 1937, was one of the most important exhibits of the museum Henie-Onstad Art Center, near Oslo. Its estimated value is about 20 million dollars. The work belonged to collector Paul Rosenberg, grandfather of the famous French journalist Anne Sinclair. The heirs claimed it when they saw it exposed to a temporary exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in 2012.

Paul Rosenberg left France for New York in 1940. The next year the Nazis seized 162 projects he had in his collection, including Matisse's one, which reached to the hands of the commander of the Luftwaffe Hermann Goering. Then it was given to a German art dealer, Gustav Rochlits, owner of a gallery in Paris, and from there it found its way in the Parisian gallery, Petrides.

In 1950, a wealthy Norwegian collector Niels Onstad bought it in good faith from the agent Henry Benezit, without knowing how it was found in his possession. In the 1960s the Onstad and his wife, the Olympic figure skating Sonja Henie founded a museum near Oslo, where they exhibited works of art in their possession. The survey done by the museum on the case led to the decision to return the table to its rightful heirs.

The "Woman in Blue" won't go to Paris, but will cross the Atlantic, by agreement between the descendants of the Rosenberg, as his granddaughter lives in France, but his bride and her two children live in U.S. and will receive it. Christopher Marinello, the representative of the "American branch" of the family, went to Oslo to accept the work and said that they are still seeking "hundreds of projects" that were stolen by the Nazis during the war and the occupation of France.