98-year-old Jewish American claims ownership of Van Gogh painting in Musée d’Orsay, saying it was wrested from his grandfather by Nazis

A 98-year-old Jewish American is fighting for the return of a Vincent van Gogh painting which he argues was forced from his grandfather, who owned it before the rise of the Nazis in Germany.

The painting, Hôpital Saint-Paul à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (1889), shows a man (Van Gogh’s doctor) standing outside an asylum where the artist was treated. It is currently at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

Klaus Kallmann alleges it was taken from his grandfather Felix Kallmann, a German Jewish industrialist and collector from Berlin.

According to records, Kallmann tried to sell the painting in 1932. Its trail disappears soon afterward, before the painting’s reappearance in 1934 at a well-known dealer’s gallery. It then changed ownership many times over the decades, before finally arriving at the museum.

French investigators say the family likely suffered persecution under the Nazis, but cannot say whether the painting was sold under coercion. Researchers have found no clear evidence of a forced sale.

The case hinges on whether a sale by a Jewish collector in early Nazi Germany should automatically be seen as involuntary. The issue is now under review by France’s Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation.