Looted painting in US hands ordered back to French family

PARIS (AP) - A Paris court has ordered an American couple to return a valuable Camille Pissarro painting looted during World War II to the descendants of a French family who owned it at the time.

U.S. citizens Bruce and Robbi Toll had loaned the painting "La Cueillette des Pois," or "Picking Peas," by impressionist master Pissarro to the Parisian museum Marmottan for an exhibition earlier this year.

But the painting was placed in temporary escrow after one the French heirs recognized it and filed a lawsuit to have the work returned.

A civil judge said Tuesday that the Tolls didn't act in bad faith when they bought the painting from Christie's in 1995 but that the sales of all goods looted by the French Vichy regime or its Nazi allies were void.