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 said in a press release.
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.
“It’s an act of justice to have it returned,” Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, reportedly said. “It has huge sentimental feeling for the family.”
James Dennehy, assistant director in charge of the FBI in New York City, said his agents were “honored” to have helped return the art.
“While this Monet is undoubtedly valuable, its true worth lies in what it represents to the Parlagi family,” Dennehy said in a press release. “It’s a connection to their history, their loved ones, and a legacy that was nearly erased. The emotions tied to reclaiming something taken so brutally can’t be measured in dollars – it’s priceless.”
Federal authorities are continuing to investigate art stolen from the Parlagis, including the 1903 Paul Signac watercolor Seine in Paris (Pont de Grenelle). The same Nazi art dealer who trafficked their Monet also purchased this Signac.
Because of the Signac watercolor’s history, the FBI said it’s “very likely” the work is now known by a different name. The Signac was placed in the FBI’s National Stolen Art File (NSAF) catalog and authorities are urging anyone with information to come forward.
Some 20% of the art in Europe was looted by Nazis, according to the National Archives. The World Jewish Restitution Organization and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany released a report in March indicating that 24 countries “had made little or no progress” in returning art stolen during the Holocaust.
The reported estimated that more than 100,000 of the 600,000 “paintings and many more of the millions of books, manuscripts, ritual religious items, and other cultural objects” stolen during the Holocaust have not been returned.
The two dozen countries that have lagged in their Nazi art recovery efforts, which include Russia and Turkey, are among more than 40 nations that in 1998 backed the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. The principles were meant to foster the return of looted art and cultural works.
Reuters contributed reporting
