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# Klaus Kallmann, aged 98, has spent nine years suing the Musée d'Orsay in Paris over Vincent van Gogh's 1889 painting "The Hospital Saint-Paul at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence"
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/98-letnii-klaus-kallman-deviat-let-suditsia-s-parizhskim-muzeem-orse-za-kartinu-vinsenta-van-goga-gospital-sen-pol-v-sen-remi-de-provans-1889-goda/
- Published: 2026-07-01T07:31:33.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:43.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Museums, Heritage, Society, Paris

Kallmann insists that he remembers it from childhood on the wall of his grandfather's villa, and that the Nazis plundered the family collection, which means the canvas belongs to him.

The plaintiff's grandfather, Felix Kallmann, was a Berlin lawyer and collector who ran a lamp company and a film studio. In June 1932 he tried, by letter, to sell this van Gogh to the Berlin Staatsgalerie, but the prospective buyer declined, pleading that it "already had several van Goghs". After that the trail of the painting goes cold until February 1934, when it surfaces at Paul Rosenberg's gallery in Paris. How the canvas got there, however, remains unclear.

In May the Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation resulting from the anti-Semitic legislation in force during the Occupation proved unable to reach an unambiguous verdict. Its chairman, David Zivie, considers that the family undoubtedly suffered from anti-Semitic persecution, but that proving this particular van Gogh was among the plundered items is difficult.

The main question is whether any sale made by a German Jew at the very beginning of 1933 should be deemed forced.

Let us agree that not every loss of property by a Jewish family automatically amounts to looting. After all, there is a quite tangible boundary between a free transaction in 1932 and a sale under duress after Hitler's rise to power. The case will be heard in September. The lawyer, naturally, reminds us that for a plaintiff of 98 every week may prove decisive.