One looted by the Nazis Adrian van Ostade the painting once intended for the Führermuseum of Adolf Hitler will now settle in the Museum of Fine Arts, Bostonthanks to an agreement between collectors Susan and Matthew Weatherbie and the heirs of art dealers Paul Graupe and Arthur Goldschmidt.

The work of the 17th century Dutch artist, Customers conversing in a tavern (1671) was part of Paul Graupe’s Paris gallery inventory in 1939, when he was forced to flee the country due to the persecution of Jews under the Nazi occupation.

Graupe had his business partner, Arthur Goldschmidt, try to smuggle the gallery’s stock out of the country. But in 1941, Goldschmidt sold the oil-on-panel painting to Karl Haberstock, an art dealer working with the Nazis, before emigrating to the United States himself via Cuba.

Haberstock, in turn, sold the work to Hitler’s artistic adviser and curator Hans Posse, who hoped to include the piece in the planned Führermuseum in Linz, Austria, but Allied forces recovered it from the mine of Austrian salt Altaussee towards the end of the war. When no one came forward to claim it, the French state auctioned it off in 1951, and the painting changed hands several times over the following years.

Adrien van Ostade Customers conversing in a tavern (1671). Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, promised gift of Susan and Matthew Weatherbie, in favor of the Center for Netherlandish Art. Courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

When the Weatherbies bought Customers conversing in 1992, they were unaware of his ties to the Nazis. The interior scene depicts two groups of people chatting, sharing space with a sleeping rooster and dog.

Now, after six years of provenance research and negotiations, the Weatherbies have agreed to an undisclosed cash payment to the Goldschmidt and Graupe heirs, in return for the ability to keep the work. In 2017, the couple pledged to donate Customers conversing at the MFA as part of a larger collection of about 30 Dutch and Flemish paintings.

“We are pleased that these long-standing ownership issues have been amicably resolved, and we are pleased to post Customers conversing in a tavern to the MFA so it can be shared with the public,” the Weatherbies said in a statement.

Victoria Reed, the museum’s senior curator for provenance, was initially suspicious of the painting’s provenance shortly after the couple promised it to the museum, when she spotted it in the database of the German Lost Art Foundation.

Further research revealed correspondence between Goldschmidt and Graupe proving that the fate of the painting had been the source of controversy between the two men.

At one point, Graupe denounced Goldschmidt to the French government for “abusive possession of property” – which did not sit well with the accused.

Victoria Reed, Senior Curator for Provenance, with Adriaen van Ostade Customers conversing in a tavern (1671). Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, promised gift of Susan and Matthew Weatherbie, in favor of the Center for Netherlandish Art. Photo courtesy of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

“What’s your problem?” Goldschmidt wrote to Graupe in March 1941. “How can you, you who have spent the whole war in neutral countries, safe and sound…dare to mobilize the authorities against me. He would later claim he had been forced to sell the Van Ostade and other paintings to appease the smugglers, and it seems Graupe never learned the truth that the work had gone to the Nazis.

“It’s not a black and white story,” Reed said. Boston magazine. “It is difficult to categorize with precision the decisions of an emigrated Jewish art dealer, who lives in the south of France, trying to survive and get out of Europe.”

After the war, Graupe fought to get his property back, but at some point he mysteriously removed Van Ostade’s painting from his claims. Graupe died in Germany in 1953 and Goldschmidt in Switzerland in 1960.

Customers conversing was on display at the museum this weekend alongside other works by Van Ostade, as well as paintings by his pupil Cornelis Bega.

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