NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art has restituted to
the heirs of a Munich-based art gallery an 18th-century Meissen
snuffbox. In 1936, the shareholders of the gallery, who were
Jewish, were forced to liquidate the gallery's entire stock in
response to an extortionate tax demand by the Nazi Government in
order to secure their freedom to leave Germany. The gallery's
inventory was sold at auction in Berlin in 1936. The snuffbox,
which is 1-5/8 inches in height and 3-½ inches in length, is
oblong in shape and highly decorated. The design on its cover is
based on a design by Jacques de Lajoüe. The snuffbox was given
to the Museum in 1982, but it was not until 2007 that the Museum
learned, through its own ongoing provenance research, of the
forced sale of works, including the snuffbox, at the 1936
auction. In April 2007, the Museum wrote to the lawyer it knew
to be representing the heirs alerting them to the fact that the
Museum's collection included a snuffbox sold in the 1936
auction. After an exchang