Shortly before the Nazi occupation of France in 1940, a prominent Jewish family, led by Robert Bing, fled their Paris home. Among the possessions they left behind was a l9th-century work by Gustave Courbet, the French realist painter. The Courbet was seized by the Nazis and, according to a handwritten note that accompanied the seized work, the painting was intended for the collection of Hermann Göring. After the war, a London art dealership acquired the painting, and turned it over to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge.

Now, a British government panel has determined that the painting should be returned to the heirs of Robert Bing, who died in 1993. The report did not fault the museum for accepting the looted Courbet, which it received through a donation in 1951, nor did the report place any value on the painting.