The heirs of Max Stern, a Jewish gallery owner forced by the Nazis to sell his paintings, said they would redouble their efforts to recover artworks still in Germany and announced the return of a work once owned by former German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. The painting 'Flight from Egypt' by the Circle of Jan Wellens de Cock (1480-1527), is valued at between US$ 25,000 and 50,000. It is not known how it came into the possession of Adenauer. "We are in the first stage of pursuing the artworks which we believe are in Germany," Clarence Epstein, director of special projects and cultural affairs at Concordia University, said at a press conference, adding that a "disconcerting" number of Stern paintings remained in German collections.
Max Stern fled Germany shortly after the forced sale and liquidation of his gallery, settling in Canada and rebuilding his business there. He had limited success in retrieving paintings he was compelled to sell after the war and was awarded some financial compensation by a German court in 1964. Stern died in 1987 without children, and left his inheritance to three universities: Concordia and McGill in Montreal, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The universities began their campaign to get the art back in 2002, creating the Max Stern Art Restitution Project.
