Among the pictures, sketches and photos of family members from several generations in Rudolph Beran's Birmingham flat, sits a large oil painting of a glamorous young woman looking into the distance.
The portrait of his mother Irene, painted by the German artist Freiherr Hugo von Habermann in 1920, was recently returned via an unlikely chain of events - 65 years after the Nazis stole it.
The portrait of Irene by Freiherr Hugo von Habermann.
Now aged 94, Rudolph last saw "our treasured picture of Irene" as a young man when he left Czechoslovakia nearly 70 years ago.
It brings back memories of his vivacious mother, and growing up in an elegant home in Brunn, (now the Czech Republic's Brno) filled with music and art.
"The image is so evocative of my mother's flamboyant character that it always had pride of place in our pre-war family home," he said.
However, the family home and its possessions including, it is believed, Irene's portrait were confiscated during occupation by the Nazis.
His father, Philip, was among thousands of Jews transported to Czechoslovakia's Terezin concentration camp, and he died in the Riga camp.
Many of Irene's "wonderful collection" of paintings were saved as she had stored them in two crates in Paris while living there in the early 1930s.
Some years after the war, the Beran family opened the crates and among the possessions found a biography of Habermann with an inscription to Irene.
The book included a colour reproduction of Irene's portrait. It was to be the key to finding the original painting - but not for more than 40 years and following the creation of the internet.
Rudolph's son Max stumbled across a website about Habermann set up by Sabine Scheele, a German enthusiast of his work.
He contacted Sabine and she added the picture of the portrait to the website.
Then in May 2006, Max received an email from her which said his grandmother's portrait had been recognised in a castle in Potsdam, Germany.
It was in the care of the SPSG, a state agency looking after royal palaces in that region.
Records indicated the portrait had been seized by East German customs after a smuggling attempt and sold on to the provincial government of Brandenburg.
After nearly two years of emails between Max and the SPSG's restitution team leader, the paperwork was completed and the painting handed over in a formal ceremony in Potsdam.
Rudolph has since had the artwork restored and says it reminds him of his mother's unconventional and adventurous life.
It was a love affair with her brother-in-law Bruno which led to the portrait being painted all those years ago.
Bruno was an artist whose interest in impressionism took him to Paris, where he later wrote that he watched Claude Monet paint and the elderly artist had "expressed an interest" in him.
"Apparently mother and Bruno fell in love, although as a young boy I was not aware of it," Rudolph said.
"She went to see him many times when he travelled to pursue his artistic career."
It was on a trip to see Bruno that the portrait was painted by his former tutor Habermann.
Irene later divorced Philip and settled with Bruno in Ibiza.
Meanwhile, Rudolph had left Czechoslovakia to travel and study languages, and by 1933 was in Barcelona.
He was reunited with the couple and at the onset of the Spanish Civil War, the three of them made their way to England.
Rudolph went on to marry and moved to Birmingham where he ran a lighting business for nearly 40 years.
After more overseas adventures, Irene and Bruno lived for many years together in Spain where they died in their 90s within months of each other in 1979.
The Beran family's large home in Brno has also been returned and Rudolph's children are in the process of restoring it.
"My family all want me to write my memoirs," Rudolph said, adding that he was content to write Bridge articles for the Birmingham Jewish Recorder.
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