Pissarro's Looted Parisian Masterpiece Resurfaces After Decades in Swiss Bank Vault

In 2007, Camille Pissarro's 1903 artwork 'Le Quai Malaquais et l'Institut, Printemps' was retrieved from a vault at the Zurich Cantonal Bank, where it had been stored after being stolen by Nazis from Jewish publisher Samuel Fischer. This piece, created during Pissarro's last period in Paris, showcases a view of the Left Bank from the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire. Pissarro, who was born in 1830, played a pivotal role in the Impressionist movement and co-established the Société Anonyme des Artistes in 1873. The Gestapo had seized the painting, which was later auctioned in 1940 at Vienna's Dorotheum. Swiss prosecutor Ivo Hoppler discovered it alongside two other artworks belonging to Nazi looter Bruno Lohse. Another of Pissarro's stolen pieces is still housed at Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, despite ongoing restitution efforts.