Avenue de l'Opera by Camille Pissarro in 1898 Photo: VCG

 A French court is to decide the fate of an impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro after the daughter of a man, from whom the Nazis stole it, challenged a US-French accord.

A lawyer for Leone-Noelle Meyer, 80, said she has asked that a 2016 agreement with the Foundation of the University of Oklahoma be overturned so that she can donate the impressionist painting La Bergère rentrant des moutons, or Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep, to the Musee D'Orsay in Paris.

The oil-on-canvas work was painted in 1886 and acquired in the 1930s by Meyer's adoptive father, Raoul Meyer, who ran the Paris department store Galeries Lafayette.

It was confiscated by Nazi forces in February 1941 and wound up in Switzerland at the end of World War II before being bought by Aaron and Clara Weitzenhoffer, who bequeathed it to the University of Oklahoma.

Leone-Noelle Meyer learned of its existence there almost 10 years ago, and launched proceedings to recover the painting.

An agreement was reached in February 2016 under which she became the owner, and after being displayed for five years in France, the work was to rotate for three-year period with the university's Fred Jones Jr museum of art.

But Meyer wants to give the painting to the Musee d'Orsay while she is still alive, and the museum has declined the gift because of the strings attached to it.

The painting is scheduled to return to the US on July 16, 2021.

"Mrs Meyer is fighting for the right to donate this painting to the Musee d'Orsay," Meyer's lawyer Ron Soffer told AFP.