He recognized that the painting should be restored to the Grunwald family and Karl's descendants, now scattered between France and the US, were traced by Christie's at the Frenchman's request.
"It was a fantastically noble situation," said Pylkkanen. And an unusual one. Had the painting stayed in Austria, where it is likely to have ended up in a museum, chances are that restitution would have proved much more arduous.
The descendants of Alma Mahler (composer Gustav Mahler's wife) have, for instance, been trying since 1953 to regain the Munch she was forced to leave behind as she escaped Vienna in 1938. That painting still hangs in the Austrian Gallery in Vienna.
Last month Pollack flew to London to see for the first time the painting that had become her family's obsession.
"I was very emotional. Overwhelmed with joy," she said.
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