(NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When Léone Meyer discovered in 2012 that a painting Nazi looters had stolen from her father was in the collection of an American museum, her first instinct was to demand its return.

But Meyer, who lives in Paris, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma struck an agreement in 2016: The 1886 painting, “La Bergère Rentrant des Moutons,” or “Shepherdess Bringing In Sheep,” by Camille Pissarro, would be displayed at a museum in France for five years, then would rotate every three years between the university and one or more French institutions of Meyer's choosing. Meyer, who is 80, also agreed that, during her lifetime or in her will, she would give the painting to an art institution in France.

In 2018, Meyer, a Holocaust survivor who owns the painting, tried to donate it to the Musée d’Orsay, where it has been on display since 2017, for its permanent collection.

But the museum refused, telling Meyer it did not want to assume the cost and risk of transporting the painting to America every three years, which would have been required under the terms of the settlement.




Meyer is now seeking to prevent it from being displayed at the University of Oklahoma, where it is scheduled to return in July. She has also filed a lawsuit in France seeking permanent ownership without any rotation.

But the university disagrees that the French museum’s refusal to accept the work — and the possibility that the painting could remain in America indefinitely — is grounds for voiding the original deal.

Meyer “now inexplicably seeks to break” a settlement that “was heralded as a first-of-its-kind U.S.-France international art sharing agreement,” the university’s president, Joseph Harroz Jr., and the University of Oklahoma Foundation president and chief executive, Guy Patton, said in a statement last Thursday.

“For all the good faith that the OU Foundation and the University of Oklahoma have extended to Meyer, it is disappointing that she is actively working to renege on the agreement,” the statement said. “We are ready to challenge this unwarranted threat in U.S. and French courts.”

The case is scheduled to be heard by a French court in January.

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