A French family has taken legal steps in Switzerland to recover a painting by the master English landscape painter John Constable that they say was stolen from them in World War II, a legal source said Tuesday, according to AFP.
The Jaffe family say a Constable work, "The Stour Valley," was confiscated along with other paintings and works of art by France's collaborationist Vichy government in 1942. The collection was seized after the death of Anna Jaffe, a member of a prominent family of German-born Jews, and was auctioned off in Nice in 1943.
After a number of years and several changes of ownership, the Museum of Fine Arts in the Swiss town of La Chaux-de-Fonds was bequeathed the painting by a local family.