98-Year-Old Heir Presses France to Return a Van Gogh at the Center of a Nazi-Looted Art Claim
A restitution dispute over a Vincent van Gogh painting has reached a new stage in France, where officials are weighing whether a work now in the Musée d’Orsay should be returned to the family of a German Jewish collector. Klaus Kallmann, who is 98 and lives in the United States, says *Hôpital Saint-Paul à Saint-Rémy-de-Provence* (1889) was taken from his grandfather’s collection after the Nazis came to power.
The painting, which shows Théophile Peyron standing near the Saint-Rémy mental hospital where Van Gogh was treated, is part of France’s national art collection. Kallmann says it once hung in his grandfather’s Berlin villa and was later lost amid the family’s flight from Germany. His grandfather, Felix Kallmann (1853–1938), also ran businesses in lightbulbs and film production before dying days after Kristallnacht.
France’s Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation, known as CIVS, has acknowledged that the Kallmann family was subjected to antisemitic persecution. But David Zivie, who heads the commission, told Le Monde that the available record does not allow officials to say with certainty that the Van Gogh was among the assets sold under duress. The problem is a familiar one in Nazi-looted art cases: the paper trail is broken. In this instance, there are gaps in the provenance between June 1932 and February 1934.
The work surfaced in Paris in 1934 at the gallery of Paul Rosenberg, the influential dealer, and was eventually donated to the Louvre. For Kallmann’s lawyer, Markus Stötzel, the case fits squarely within the principles adopted in 1998 by 44 nations in the Washington Principles, which urge decision-makers to account for gaps and ambiguities created by the Holocaust era.
The dispute is now before a judge and a committee of government officials, with the next key meeting expected in September. However it is resolved, the case underscores how restitution claims continue to test museums, governments, and the limits of provenance research more than eight decades after the war.
