An 18th-century painting looted by the Nazis for Adolf Hitler's `Fuehrer Museum' was handed back to Poland on Monday, a move Germany hopes will revive thorny talks over a vast trove of historical documents that Berlin wants to recover from Poland.

The painting - "Palace Stairs" by Venetian artist Francesco Guardi - was taken from the National Museum in Warsaw in 1939, shortly after Germany invaded Poland. The small painting depicts noblemen talking at the grand stairs of Venice's Doge Palace.

After World War II, the painting went to the University of Heidelberg and then to the State Gallery of Baden-Wuerttemberg before it was recognized as belonging to Poland in the late 1990s. But political differences between Warsaw and Berlin over how to handle the broader issue of art lost during the war prevented a deal from being reached sooner.