holocaust
FBI returns Monet painting stolen by Nazis to family of the Jewish owners
Agents were ‘honored’ to give back the piece as hundreds of thousands of stolen cultural objects remain unreturned
A Claude Monet pastel looted from a Jewish couple by Nazis in the second world war was returned to the family’s descendants, officials said on Wednesday.
Adalbert “Bela” and Hilda Parlagi purchased the artwork, titled Bord de Mer, at an Austrian art auction in 1936. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the Parlagis had to flee and they left their possessions in storage.
The Nazis in 1940 seized their belongings, which included seven other artworks, and a Nazi art dealer purchased the pastel. The Monet, which dates to about 1865, subsequently “disappeared” in 1941, the FBI.
Bela Parlagi searched for his stolen art after the second world war until he died in 1981. His son also tried to find the family’s art, to no avail, until his 2012 death.
FBI agents started to investigate the stolen pastel in 2021 after the Commission for Looted Art in Europe contacted authorities about the pastel. The commission had learned that a New Orleans art dealer acquired the pastel in 2017 and sold it to private collectors two years later.
The pastel was listed for sale at a Houston, Texas, art gallery in 2023. FBI agents and New York City police detectives contacted the pastel’s owners – who did not know its provenance – and explained that it had been looted.
The owners voluntarily surrendered the pastel to authorities and gave up their ownership rights. The work was returned to the Parlagis’ granddaughters, Helen Lowe and Francoise Parlagi.
TANIKO Madagascar 