For decades, it hung near the dining room inside a family home: a genre painting by a Dutch old master depicting an old man and his wife weighing and counting their gold coins. Judged a genuine work by Jan Steen and dated to the 1660s, it was once valued at $400,000.

But now, the work is almost impossible to sell — rejected by Sotheby’s, by Christie’s and by a renowned Dutch art dealer who were all put off, not by its authenticity, but its history.

Sometime in the years leading up to World War II, when Jewish art collections in Germany were already being pillaged, it was owned — if that’s the right word — by a Dutch Nazi collaborator and war profiteer, Dirk Menten.

Did he steal it or buy it, and when? Did his brother, Pieter, a war criminal who murdered Jews and plundered their art collections, play a role?