A Canadian foundation trying to track down artworks looted by the Nazis has recovered a portrait by Renaissance artist Nicolas Neufchatel.

The Max Stern Art Restitution Project, based in Montreal, announced the recovery on Tuesday.

Portrait of Jan van Eversdyck, by Flemish-born Neufchatel, was found in a collection in Spain, after having been sold at least twice between the end of the Second World War and today.

Max Stern, a Jewish art dealer in Dusseldorf from 1913 to 1934, lost 250 European masterpieces confiscated or sold by force to the Nazis.

Stern fled Germany in 1937 and eventually moved to Montreal, where he and his wife owned the Dominion Gallery.

When he died in 1987, Stern named Concordia, McGill University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem the beneficiaries of his estate.

Concordia University has been managing the hunt for paintings Stern once owned that were confiscated by the Nazis.

A Concordia University professor located the Neufchatel in the collection of the Yannick and Ben Jakober Foundation of Mallorca, Spain.

The Holocaust Claims Processing Office in New York, which helps reclaim property taken by the Nazis, including hundreds of works of art, contacted the current owners of the painting.

The Jakober Foundation made prompt plans to return the painting, which was resold in 1977 and 1996 at Lempertz, the same auction house where Stern was forced to sell his collection.

"We are delighted by the sensitivity and unequivocal co-operation of the Jakober family and their foundation team in our cause. They have truly risen to the occasion," Robert Vineberg, executor of the Stern estate, said in a statement.

It is the second recovery of a painting from the Stern collection.

In October 2006, an Emile Lecomte-Vernet painting was found and returned to the Max Stern Restitution Project.

It is currently on loan to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.