Young Man as Bacchus was one of hundreds of works confiscated by the Nazis from a German art dealer before World War II. Max Stern was the son of a German Jewish art collector who set up the famous Gallery Stern in Dusseldorf before World War I. When his father died in 1934, Dr Stern took ownership of the gallery, but two years later the Nazis forced him and other Jewish people to hand over their art and other assets.