MONTREAL (AFP) ― A German museum for the first time on Tuesday returned a painting despoiled by the Nazis to the estate of a late German Jewish art dealer.

Concordia University in Montreal, acting on behalf of the executors of the estate of Max Stern (1904-1987), announced Staatsgalerie Stuttgart’s restitution of an early Northern Renaissance painting belonging to Stern.

Clarence Epstein, who leads the restitution project, received the painting at a ceremony at the Canadian embassy in Berlin. He was accompanied by Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney.

The painting of the Virgin and Child, attributed to the Master of Flemalle (1375-1444), identified by historians as Robert Campin, was donated to the Stuttgart museum after the Second World War.

“This work is important because, first of all, it’s an early Renaissance painting. Early Renaissance paintings are not very frequently on the market, particularly if you can look at the market today. They are highly praised and highly sought after works,” Epstein told AFP.

“And Campin was one of the most important painters of his time in Europe,” he added.

Since 2003, Concordia has sought to recover more than 400 paintings lost to Stern at the hands of the Nazis through a forced sale in 1937.

Stern himself shuttered his Dusseldorf gallery in December of that year, and fled to London before settling in Canada. While in London he was forced to liquidate even more paintings, including the Virgin and Child, in order to buy a German exit visa for his mother.

He would go on to become one of Canada’s most important art dealers and collectors.

The bulk of his estate following his 1987 death was bequeathed to Concordia, McGill University in Montreal, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The Stuttgart recovery comes on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Stern Gallery in Dusseldorf by Max Stern’s father, Julius.

It is the tenth return in ten years for the restitution project, and its recovery is thanks to researchers at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and the Holocaust Claims Processing Office of the New York State Department of Financial Services, which has taken an active role in pursuing Stern claims since the inception of the project.

“We uncovered very important archival documents that convinced the State of Baden-Wurttemberg that this claim was very solid,” explained Epstein.