The tavern panel sold in wartime and settled in Boston

By 1937 Adriaen van Ostade’s tavern scene was in the Paris gallery stock of Paul Graupe and Arthur Goldschmidt. Both Jewish dealers had already fled persecution in Germany. Graupe moved on through Switzerland and Portugal to the United States. Before leaving Europe, he asked Goldschmidt to help save the stock, which remained in occupied Paris. Goldschmidt had escaped to southern France after internment and conscription.

In February 1941 Goldschmidt negotiated a sale of the panel to Karl Haberstock, an agent for Hitler who could travel between the occupied and unoccupied zones. Haberstock passed it to Hitler’s adviser Hans Posse for the projected Linz museum. Allied forces recovered it and sent it to France for restitution. It remained unclaimed there at the end of the 1940s, and the French state sold it at auction in 1951.

Susan and Matthew Weatherbie acquired the panel in 1992 without knowing its Nazi-era history and pledged it to the MFA in 2017. In 2023 the collectors, the museum and the heirs of both dealers reached an agreement. Its published terms let the work stay on display and permit the Weatherbies to donate it to the museum in the future.