Painting stolen by Nazis found at New York museum

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A painting the Nazis stole from a Jewish family in the 1930s has been tracked down by the FBI to a museum in New York.

The piece titled “Winter,” by American artist Gari Melchers, was on display at the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie until Sept. 10, the Associated Press reported citing federal court documents.

It will now remain at the FBI’s office in Albany until it’s returned to its rightful owners.

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The painting "Winter," by the artist Gari Melchers, was stolen by the Nazis in 1933. (AP/US Attorney's Office)

German publisher and philanthropist Rudolf Mosse first acquired the painting from the Great Berlin Art Exhibition in 1900. After his family members fled Germany in 1933, the Nazi government then seized control of the Mosse family's art collection.

The Nazis had persecuted the family because they were Jewish and because of their affiliations with Berliner Tageblatt, a newspaper critical of the party, according to court documents viewed by the Associated Press.

Bartlett Arkell, the first president of the Beech-Nut Packing Company, bought the painting from a New York City gallery in 1934 for his personal collection. It later became part of the collection at the museum that bears his name, 50 miles northwest of Albany.

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Suzan D. Friedlander, the museum's executive director and chief curator, told the Associated Press that the Arkell Museum "was of course very upset to learn the history of the painting's seizure from the Mosse family by the Nazis in 1933."

The museum has waived all its rights to the painting.

Fox News' Thairy Lantigua and the Associated Press contributed to this report.