The National Gallery of Art in Washington announced it will return a pastel drawing by Pablo Picasso, “Head of a Woman,” to the heirs of a prominent German-Jewish banker who was persecuted by the Nazis.

The 1903 Blue Period pastel of a dark-haired, unsmiling woman — her identity is unknown — is one of at least 16 masterpieces that the banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy sold in the months after the Nazis seized power and before his death in 1935.

A relative of the famous composer Felix Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was ousted from the Central Association of German Banks and Bankers in 1933 and from the board of the Reich Insurance Office in 1934. The family bank was “aryanised” — transferred to non-Jewish ownership — in 1938.

“Head of a Woman” was sold to the dealer Justin K. Thannhauser in 1934. The National Gallery of Art says it acquired the pastel as a donation in 2001.