Israel’s national museum said Thursday that it has returned a painting to the estate of its creator, decades after the masterpiece was looted from a Jewish museum in Nazi Germany.

The Israel Museum said “The Return of Tobias,” a 1934 painting by German Jewish artist Max Liebermann, is now in Berlin after it was determined the work belongs to Liebermann’s heirs.

Liebermann, who died in 1935 at the age of 88, was a prolific painter who led the avant garde artistic society known as the Berlin Secession. He also served as president of the Prussian Academy of Arts during the 1920s and early 1930s. Some of his works have been valued at more than $1 million.

The Israel Museum’s director, James Snyder, said Liebermann loaned his painting to the Jewish Museum in Berlin in the 1930s. The work, along with many others, disappeared from the museum during World War II. German Nazis stole countless art treasures from museums across Europe.

After the war, the American-initiated Jewish Restitution Successor Organization searched for stashes of stolen art and distributed those pieces with no known heirs to Jewish institutions worldwide.

Liebermann’s painting was one of more than 1,000 such works delivered to Jerusalem’s Bezalel National Museum, the precursor to the Israel Museum, in the 1950s.

Over the last year, art historians began delving into the background of the painting while preparing for an exhibit on looted art in the Berlin Centrum Judaicum, Snyder said. Liebermann’s work was one of 12 pieces the Israel Museum agreed to send to Germany for the exhibit.

The research determined the piece was originally a loan from the artist — and therefore should be returned to his heirs. While “The Return of Tobias” was originally due to stay in Berlin for the three-month exhibition beginning this month, the piece will remain in Germany with his family.