Eighty years ago, Nazi officers entered a local bank in a sleepy corner of southwest France and raided a safe deposit box there.

Hidden inside, they found a stack of artworks, including a painting by Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro, showing a shepherdess bathed in warm light greeting her flock.

The painting had been hidden there by a Jewish couple, Raoul and Yvonne Meyer, the heirs of famous French department store Galeries Lafayette. It was 1941, and France had already been under German control for a year. The Pissarro canvas disappeared into Nazi custody.

A 'model' rotation agreement

No one disputes this story. But the painting itself found hanging in an Oklahoma art gallery in 2012, is now the subject of an unusual custody agreement, and a bitter transatlantic dispute over restitution rights in cases of stolen Nazi art.

The painting, La Bergère Rentrant des Moutons (Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep), was traced to the US by the Meyers' adopted daughter, Léone-Noëlle, now in her 80s.

It had been gifted to the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones Jr Museum in 2000 by an American family who had bought it in good faith. Mrs. Meyer wanted to reclaim it and bring it back to France #world #war #wwII #nazi