California returns 'looted art'

The US state of California has returned three Renaissance paintings that were confiscated from Jewish art dealers in Nazi Germany during the 1930s.

The 16th-Century paintings were returned to the heirs of their former owners, Jakob and Rosa Oppenheimer, who died during the Holocaust.

Two of the returned painting shown during a ceremony in Sacramento, California, on 10 April.

After World War II, the paintings ended up in the collection of US newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst.

They have been on display at a California museum for over 30 years.

Copies of two of the paintings will stay on display at Hearst Castle along with the original of the third painting belonging to the couple.

Millions have seen the paintings hanging in a bedroom suite at Hearst Castle, a 165-room palace built by Mr Hearst in 1919 and donated to the state of California in the 1970s.

But it was only two years ago that a lawyer for the Oppenheimer family came forward after she spotted the paintings in a promotional leaflet for the castle.