The descendants of Jewish toy maker Abraham Adelsberger have renewed a claim for a 17th‑century landscape they bought in the 1920s and believed to be a Peter Paul Rubens. The work traveled through Dresdner Bank after the family used it as loan collateral in 1932, later ending up with Nazi‑party founder Gustav Schickedanz and now his grandson Matthias Bühler. Heirs argue the painting represents a lost family treasure.

Rubens scholar Nils Büttner examined infrared scans and concluded the canvas is a workshop copy, missing the original’s eleventh cow—an urinating animal painted over to suit 20th‑century tastes. That alteration caps the piece’s market value at roughly $250,000, while the Munich Alte Pinakothek original could command over $50 million. The discrepancy underscores how provenance disputes can swing price tags by orders of magnitude.

Legal counsel for Bühler acknowledges the case’s complexity, noting Adelsberger’s 1932 loss of ownership predates the Nazi expropriation. Seven other Adelsberger works have already been returned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, but the family remains divided on a unified claim. The stalemate illustrates how unresolved WWII‑era art sales continue to generate costly negotiations for collectors and institutions.