A Renoir painting stolen by the Nazis from a Paris bank vault was returned to its rightful owner Wednesday after a more than 70-year odyssey from South Africa to London, Switzerland and New York.

"Deux Femmes Dans Un Jardin," painted in 1919 in the last year of French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's life, is finally back in the hands of the granddaughter of the Jewish owner who spent decades trying to get it back.

Sylvie Sulitzer, the last remaining heir of her grandfather Alfred Weinberger, a prominent art collector in pre-war Paris, received the work from US authorities during a ceremony at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.

Although Sulitzer knew her grandfather, she had no idea about the missing Renoir until a German law firm, specialists in recovering art looted by the Nazis from Jewish families, contacted her in the early 2010s.

"I'm very thankful to be able to show my beloved family wherever they are that after all they've been through, there is justice," Sulitzer said.

Four other Renoirs and a Delacroix, which her grandfather also owned, have yet to be recovered, she told AFP.