Fitzwilliam Museum will return painting stolen by Nazis

La Ronde Enfantine by Gustave Courbet depicts children dancing in trees

A museum will return a 19th Century painting stolen by the Nazis to the descendants of the original Jewish owner.

The oil landscape by French realist Gustave Courbet was seized from Robert Bing in occupied Paris in 1941 because he was a Jew, a government panel found.

It recommended the University of Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum should give it back to his descendants.

A spokesperson for the museum confirmed it would follow the recommendation.

The report into the painting was from the Spoliation Advisory Panel - a body of judges and historians that investigates claims for items stolen by the Nazis.

It said the 1862 work La Ronde Enfantine, which depicts a forest scene, was taken from Mr Bing's apartment in May 1941.

The painting was removed by two men from the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), a German taskforce responsible for acquiring cultural loot in occupied lands.

Mr Bing went on to join the French Resistance and receive the Croix de Guerre medal.

'Acted honourably'

The report said: "This is a deliberate seizure by the German authorities from a Jewish citizen of France with the diversion of the work of art to Nazi leaders.

"No other reason for seizure other than the Jewishness of Mr Bing has appeared to explain this seizure."

The Fitzwilliam Museum was donated the Gustave Courbet painting in 1951

In 1951 the painting was acquired by now-defunct London art dealer Arthur Tooth and Sons from a Swiss dealer.

It was bought in the same year by the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White, Dean of York, who donated it to the Fitzwilliam Museum, where it is currently in storage.

The panel said in its report there was "no criticism of the museum or the original donor, the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White, who have acted honourably".

"The museum has cared for the work so that it can now be restored to the heirs of the original owners," the report said.