[3] In May 2004, 15 heirs of Martha Nathan, contacted the Detroit Institute of Arts after seeing Van Gogh's The Diggers on the museum website.

Although the painting was publicly exhibited by the museum with acknowledgment of Nathan's prior ownership, no restitution claim was made by the heirs until 2004.

[1][6] In subsequent court action the case was dismissed based on a technicality related to time limits.

[8][2][9] In a rare bipartisan action in 2016, Congress passed the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2016, specifically to put an end to such tactics.

[10][11][12] The museum states that the use of the statute of limitations was a last resort after spending $500,000 on researching the painting's provenance, yet failing to reach agreement with the heirs.

According to Jonathan Petropoulos, the author of The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany, "The fact that [Nathan] was able to transport [the painting] to Switzerland, let alone that she did so in 1930, almost three years before Hitler came to power, means that she had freedom of action with regards to the disposition of the works.