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Artist Max Liebermann in 1904. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Israel Museum returns painting to Jewish artist’s heirs

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
Artist Max Liebermann in 1904. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Artist Max Liebermann in 1904. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s national museum says it has returned a painting to the estate of its creator, decades after the masterpiece was looted from a Jewish museum in Nazi Germany.

The Israel Museum said Thursday that The Return of Tobias, a 1934 painting by German Jewish artist Max Liebermann, is now in Berlin.

The painting was originally scheduled to go to Germany for an exhibit on looted art. But historians preparing for the exhibition discovered the work was originally loaned by Liebermann to the German museum—and therefore it belongs to his heirs.

Liebermann, who died in 1935 at the age of 88, was a prolific painter who led the avant garde artistic society known as the Berlin Secession. His works have been valued at more than $1 million.

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AP-WF-09-08-11 1611GMT