OU Agrees To Settle Lawsuit Over Stolen Painting

Federal court records show the University of Oklahoma has reached a proposed settlement in a lawsuit filed by a French woman who alleged the school's art museum housed a painting stolen from her father by Nazi allies during World War II.

A lawsuit filed in Oklahoma's Western District of federal court by Léone Meyer had sought the return of an 1886 Camille Pissarro oil painting titled “La bergère rentrant des moutons" (more commonly referred to as "La Bergère.") Meyer initially filed the lawsuit in 2013 and amended it in July.

Court records indicate Meyer and university officials reached a proposed settlement after a Nov. 9 meeting in New York City to negotiate the painting's return.

Léone Meyer had sought in her lawsuit "full and complete restitution of La Bergère."

The proposed settlement terms between Meyer and the University of Oklahoma are not detailed in the court filing.

The painting once belonged to Leone Meyer's father, Raoul Meyer, a well-known Jewish French businessman, who had built a collection of impressionist paintings prior to World War II.

According to the lawsuit, Raoul Meyer’s art collection, including La Bergère, was among valuable art and other objects "deliberately and systematically looted and seized by Nazi occupation forces in France and the Vichy Regime, a war-time ally of Nazi Germany."

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