Enlarge image

The painting »Landscape of Italian Character« by Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer is now returning to Germany

Photo: Claire Savage / AP

A baroque landscape painting that was lost during the Second World War has been found in the USA and is now returning to Germany.

The FBI handed over the 18th-century artwork "Landscape of Italian Character" by Austrian artist Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer to a representative of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich in a short ceremony at the German consulate in Chicago.

Enlarge image

FBI Special Agent David White and Bernd Ebert, curator of the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, sign documents for the return of the painting "Landscape of Italian Character"

Photo: Claire Savage / dpa

Art Recovery International, a company that specializes in locating looted art, tracked down the painting after a person from Chicago came forward last year. She claimed to possess a "stolen or stolen painting" that her uncle had brought back to the United States after serving in World War II.

The painting has been missing since 1945 and was reported stolen by the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.

"At the heart of our work at Art Recovery International is the research and restitution of works of art looted by the Nazis and discovered in public or private collections. Occasionally, we come across cases like this where Allied soldiers have taken objects home as souvenirs or war trophies," said Christopher Marinello, founder of Art Recovery International. Being on the winning side doesn't make it right," he added.

Packed in bubble wrap back to Germany

The painting, entitled "Landscape of Italian Character," will now be reunited with its counterpart, which contains similar motifs and images, according to the Munich museum. Together, the two paintings form a panoramic scene depicting shepherds and travelers with their goats, cows, donkeys and sheep at a river ford.

When war broke out in 1939, many Bavarian museum collections were evacuated to safe locations in the region, but the Lauterer painting has been missing since the war began, suggesting the possibility that it was looted, the museum said.

Between 1965 and 1973, the Bavarian State Painting Collections began searching for the painting, but it was not until decades later that clues to its whereabouts emerged.

Bernd Ebert, chief curator of Dutch and German baroque painting at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, flew to Chicago to retrieve the painting. He will carefully wrap the centuries-old landscape in bubble wrap to bring it home, where it will be repaired and restored after a few eventful decades.

Luckily, Ebert says, the picture should fit in his suitcase.

czl/AP