Emil Nolde Paul Klee Robert Delaunay Lyonel Feininger Ernst Ludwig Kirchner August Macke Franz Marc Max Pechstein

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The work, Cat Behind a Tree (1910), was one of some 4,000 pieces in the collection of the Hess family, which also included examples by Max Pechstein, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and Paul Klee.

The works had been collected by Alfred Hess, a shoe manufacturer. He died in 1931 and left them to his wife, Tekla, and son, Hans. Tekla sent several of the works, including the Marc painting, to Switzerland for protection from the Nazis in 1933. She and Hans both fled Germany in the late 1930s; after the war Hans filed a claim with the German government for the restitution of the works and was told that none could be traced. He was given a one-time compensation of 75,000 deutsche marks for the entire collection.

The Marc painting, however, had been sold to the ink-and-stationery company Pelikan AG, which sold it to the Hannover bank in 1983. It is unclear whether the Hess family received any payment at the time.

Under German law, any sales made by Jewish art collectors after 1933 are considered forced.

“Whatever the legal situation, we decided that there was a moral obligation to give the painting back,” Jan-Peter Hinrichs, a spokesman for the bank. The work was returned to the sole surviving Hess heir, Hans's daughter.

The details of the restitution, which both parties wished to remained confidential, have not been released, but for now the painting will remain on view at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, where it has been on long-term loan from the bank. It will be part of an exhibition of works by Marc, August Macke, and Robert Delaunay on view March 29 through July 19.

The value of the Marc painting has not been released; the record for a work by the artist was set last year at Sotheby's when Weidende Pferde III (Grazing Horses III) sold for £12.3 million ($24.5 million at the time.)

According to a Hannover paper, two more paintings that belonged to the Hess family are in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart: Lyonel Feininger’s Barfuesserkirche 1 and Marc’s Kleine blaue Pferde (Small Blue Horses.) The claimant's lawyer declined to comment on whether there are other outstanding claims, except to say that the family “is committed to pursuing its claims in a responsible manner which takes into account the public interest.”