U of Oklahoma to share Nazi-looted painting in legal settlement

The University of Oklahoma has agreed to share a painting looted by the Nazis with a French museum.

In a settlement agreement announced Tuesday, the university will transfer ownership of Camille Pissarro’s “Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep” to a French museum, which has not been identified yet, the Oklahaman reported.

Under the agreement, the painting will be on exhibit for five years in France, after which it will go back and forth for three-year intervals between the university’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and the French museum.

The painting, donated to the state university in 2000, originally was in a large collection owned by French department store owner Raoul Meyer. Meyer’s entire collection was seized by the Nazis when they invaded France in 1940.

“Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep” changed hands several times before a Swiss court ruled in 1953 that Meyer had missed his five-year window to recover the painting. Meyer’s daughter, Leone Meyer, filed a lawsuit against the University of Oklahoma in January 2014.

The settlement agreement acknowledges that Leone Meyer is the proper heir to the painting, but says that Clara Weitzenhoffer, who donated it to the university, acted in good faith when she and her husband purchased the artwork.