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When Beauty Has a History: The Journey of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers to Japan

October 3, 2026

When Beauty has a History Van Gogh Amanda Buonaiuto

Amanda Buonaiuto, Photograph of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers hanging in Sompo Museum of Art in Tokyo, August 29, 2026.

By Amanda Buonaiuto

Alongside the development of the Nazi-Era Looted Art Restitution Project at the Center for Art Law, a side effect developed for those curious about provenance – visiting museums that hold (once) looted artworks. Among many encounters, one thing has remained constant: spending time standing before each artwork has become a moment of reflection. Not only taking in the beauty of the piece itself, but also trying to understand more about its journey.

Who owned this object? What has this artwork already witnessed? How many houses, museums, galleries had it hung on the walls of? How many family reunions, love stories, generations of the same family has it lived through? How many airplanes or boat rides did it have to endure in order to be here now? All those questions, and countless others, allowed the viewer to expand their understanding of beauty and find fascination in what lies beyond the artwork itself. Knowing its story can make a piece even more fascinating, regardless of its beauty, which teaches us something that goes far beyond art.

Joseph Popp, Photograph of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers hanging in Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy residence in Berlin, 1916.

Standing in a dimly lit corner of the Sompo Museum of Art in Tokyo there is one^{^[1]} of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers being exhibited far away from where it was painted to decorate a guest room for Paul Gauguin.^{^[2]}

There is much more to this painting than the story of its creation. Its provenance reveals a long succession of owners, and movements across countries, each adding another layer to its history. Perhaps its journey may not have ended in Japan, since the painting lies at the center of an ongoing legal dispute between Sompo Holdings and the heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a Jewish German art collector persecuted by the Nazi regime.

The Life and Collection of Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

Having studied law at the University of Bonn, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy later became a partner in his family’s bank, Mendelssohn & Co. Alongside his professional career, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s passion for art led him to begin building his collection in 1902. Over the following years, he acquired works by Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Degas, Cézanne, and other renowned artists.

As a prominent Berlin banker of Jewish descent, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy attracted Nazi attention even before their rise to power in 1933. He soon faced the consequences of the Aryanization^{^[3]} of Germany, with his primary residence being expropriated by the Nazi authorities and his position at the bank taken away. With his finances increasingly under pressure, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy decided to move to Berlin’s countryside, and his art collection became the only remaining asset he could turn to. This ultimately led him to sell some of the paintings in order to sustain him and his wife, Elsa Lucy Emmy Lolo von Lavergne-Péguilhen, financially. The 2022 Complaint states:

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy had never sold or attempted to sell any significant artwork until the Nazis came to power in 1933. Then, in a period of less than 1.5 years during Nazi rule, that is – between September 1933 and February 1934 – Mendelssohn-Bartholdy consigned 16 of his most valuable paintings, including Sunflowers. These artworks represented integral elements of an incomparable private art collection that he had spent more than 25 years developing.^{^[4]}

One of the pieces sold by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1888), which was acquired in 1910 and remained in his collection until its sale under duress through the Parisian art dealer Paul Rosenberg in 1934.

Paul Rosenberg Archives, Photograph of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers hanging in Paul Rosenberg’s gallery in Paris, 1935.

After changing hands several times^{^[5]}, the painting was purchased by Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company at a Christie’s London auction in 1987 and taken to Japan.^{^[6]}:

When Christie’s auction house in London offered Sunflowers for sale in March 1987, Yasuda resolved to buy the Painting regardless of its price because Sunflowers presented Yasuda with a singular and non-recurring opportunity to burnish its corporate image with the unique luster of both the iconic Painting and its legendary artist. So committed, Yasuda recklessly – if not purposefully – ignored the provenance of Sunflowers that Christie’s published, which related that the famous Jewish Berlin banker and Nazi victim Paul von MendelssohnBartholdy sold the Painting in Berlin in 1934 – at a time when notorious Nazi policies were targeting and dispossessing elite Jewish bankers and businessmen like Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and wreaking havoc upon Germany’s Jewish population.^{^[7]}

Sankei Archives, Photograph of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers being displayed upon its arrival at the Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company in Tokyo, 20 July 1987.

The Legal Battles Over the Sunflowers

In 2008, the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s heirs^{^[8]} initiated a series of restitution requests and lawsuits^{^[9]} concerning artworks from Paul’s collection. In 2022, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s great-nephew, Julius H. Schoeps, his grand-niece, Britt-Marie Enhoerning, and Elsa’s daughter, Florence von Kesselstatt, along with other beneficiaries, filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois seeking the restitution of the Sunflowers in possession of the Sompo group.

This litigation sought not only to obtain the retrieval of the piece, but also reimbursement for the monetary value Sompo benefited from since its acquisition. In particular, the enrichment from the exhibition “Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South”,^{^[10]} which took place between 2001 and 2002 and featured the painting in Chicago:

“First, in 2001 the corporate predecessor of Sompo Holdings and Sompo International, Yasuda – and for the purpose of commercially exploiting the Illinois and U.S. insurance markets and availing themselves of the privilege of conducting business in Illinois – brought Sunflowers to Chicago to display at a prominent international Van Gogh exhibition (Exhibition) that the AIC was sponsoring. Yasuda was then aware that Sunflowers was most

likely a casualty of Nazi policies, and related to AIC that it was “”deeply concerned” with this

possibility. Despite extensive resources and art world expertise, Yasuda failed to investigate this likelihood. Moreover, past experience with U.S. art exhibitions had made Yasuda aware that U.S. law enforcement authorities might seize Sunflowers as Nazi contraband if Yasuda brought the Painting into the U.S. To obviate this possibility, AIC – with the knowledge and approval of Yasuda – filed a false report with the United States Department of State (the “State Department”) to conceal the Painting’s Nazi taint and to mislead the State Department into issuing a certificate of non-judicial seizure (the “Certificate”) that would enable Yasuda to display Sunflowers at the Exhibition without fear that it would be seized.”^{^[11]}

In 2024, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss^{^[12]} the legal proceeding, alleging that Illinois does not have a particular interest in this dispute. The arguments presented were that none of the parties are residents of this state and, apart from the display of the painting at the Art Institute of Chicago over twenty years ago, none of the conduct at issue occurred there. On this basis the motion was granted by the judge, and the case was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction.^{^[13]}

The heirs appealed the District Court’s dismissal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit the following year. They argued that Sompo Holdings had sufficient ties to Illinois, as Sompo International, a corporation belonging to the same corporate group, conducted business in Chicago and maintained a physical office there. Additionally, the heirs also contested the District Court’s conclusion that they had failed to assert a legal basis for disregarding the separate corporate identities of the various Sompo defendants. The proceedings ultimately concluded with the Seventh Circuit affirming the District Court’s dismissal.

In April 2026, the heirs filed a petition for a writ of certiorari^{^[14]} to the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Seventh Circuit’s decision. American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists also submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the petition. However, the petition was denied.^{^[15]} After the several dismissals and denials, in June of 2026, the heirs decided to file a new complaint, this time before the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.^{^[16]}

The newly filed complaint alleges that the heirs are entitled to restitution of the Sunflowers under the 2025 Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act)^{^[17]}. This law emphasizes that Holocaust survivors and their heirs should not be denied access to justice on the basis of procedural technicalities or arbitrary deadlines, and that such claims should be adjudicated on their merits. While the proceedings are ongoing, with further stages of litigation expected in the coming months, the painting remains in Tokyo.

Amanda Buonaiuto, Photograph of a signboard at Sompo Museum of Art, 29 August 2026.

About the Author

Amanda Buonaiuto is a Brazilian lawyer with a specialization in Nazi-looted art restitution, earned through her LL.M. at the University of Bonn, Germany. With additional expertise in provenance research, she currently leads the Nazi-Era Looted Art Restitution Project at the Center for Art Law.

Select References

See Appendix Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Van Gogh Museum Journal (1999), https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_van012199901_01/_van012199901_01_0006.php ↑
See https://www.sompo-museum.org/en/collection/gogh/ ↑
Aryanization refers to the systematic process through which the Nazi regime excluded Jews from economic life and forcibly transferred their businesses, property, and other assets to non-Jewish Germans. The policy was rooted in the Nazi racial ideology of creating a “pure” German national community based on Hitler’s conception of an idealized Aryan. ↑
See complaint for restitution, page n°. 62 : Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-07013 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 13, 2022),https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf2022/Schoeps%20et%20al.%20v.%20Sompo%20Holdings%20et%20al%20(Dec.%2013,%202022).pdf ↑
See Appendix Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Van Gogh Museum Journal (1999), https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_van012199901_01/_van012199901_01_0006.php ↑
In 2002, Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company was incorporated into the insurance company Sompo Holdings. ↑
See complaint for restitution, page n°. 5 : Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-06836 (D.N.J. June 9, 2026),https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/nazi-stolen-painting-van-gogh-complaint.pdf ↑
“On February 8, 1935 – about three months before his death – Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and his non-Jewish wife, Elsa, executed a Contract of Inheritance (hereinafter the “COI”), which under German law is an alternative to a will. Under this contract, Paul gave Elsa a life estate in his property, with a reversionary interest to his four sisters or their heirs. In other words, at the time of Elsa’s death, Paul’s four sisters (or their heirs) would become the residuary owners of Paul’s property and all rights related thereto”, See complaint for restitution, page n°. 6: Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-07013 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 13, 2022), https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf2022/Schoeps%20et%20al.%20v.%20Sompo%20Holdings%20et%20al%20(Dec.%2013,%202022).pdf ↑
Schoeps v. Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Found., 66 A.D.3d 137, 884 N.Y.S.2d 396 (1st Dep’t 2009); Schoeps v. Freistaat Bayern, No. 13 Civ. 2048 (JSR) (S.D.N.Y. June 27, 2014); Museum of Modern Art v. Schoeps, 549 F. Supp. 2d 543 (S.D.N.Y. 2008). ↑
See https://archive.artic.edu/vangogh/studiosud.html ↑
See complaint for restitution, page n°. 23 : Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-07013 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 13, 2022),https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf2022/Schoeps%20et%20al.%20v.%20Sompo%20Holdings%20et%20al%20(Dec.%2013,%202022).pdf ↑
See Memorandum Opinion and Order: Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-07013 (N.D. Ill. 2024), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/illinois/ilndce/1:2022cv07013/424466/74/ ↑
“The fact that Sompo’s unlawful conversion of Sunflowers took place in London and that the painting currently resides in Japan means that Illinois’ interest in adjudicating this dispute is limited at best. And while the plaintiffs point to the United States’ interest in returning stolen Nazi art as a signatory of the Terezin Declaration, they identify no Illinois-specific interests and fail to explain why adjudicating this dispute outside of Illinois would be contrary to principles of interstate federalism. Accordingly, the Court grants the defendants’ motion and dismisses the plaintiffs’ remaining claims due to lack of personal jurisdiction.” See Memorandum Opinion and Order, page nr.°33: Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 1:22-cv-07013 (N.D. Ill. 2024), https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/illinois/ilndce/1:2022cv07013/424466/74/ ↑
A petition for a writ of certiorari is a formal request asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a decision made by a lower court. ↑
See Supreme Court Docket: Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 25-1226, https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=%2Fdocket%2Fdocketfiles%2Fhtml%2Fpublic%2F25-1226.html ↑
Schoeps v. Sompo Holdings, Inc., No. 2:26-cv-06836-WJM-SDA (D.N.J. June 9, 2026). Complaint for Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, U.S. District Court For The District of New Jersey ,https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/nazi-stolen-painting-van-gogh-complaint.pdf ↑
See U.S. Congress, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2026, Pub. L. No. 119-82 (2026), https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1884/text ↑

Disclaimer: This article is for educational purposes only and is not meant to provide legal advice. Readers should not construe or rely on any comment or statement in this article as legal advice. For legal advice, readers should seek a consultation with an attorney.