The heirs of a Jewish art collector are suing New York City’s Met gallery claiming that one of its paintings was illegally acquired in Nazi-occupied France.
Haystacks, Morning, Éragny, painted in 1899 by Camille Pissarro, originally belonged to German-Jewish department store owner Max Julius Braunthal, who fled to France in 1933.
The Nazis looted everything that Braunthal left behind – except the painting, which he took with him.
In 1940, while living under occupied France, Braunthal sold his painting to the Durand-Ruel gallery for what his heirs say would have been a fraction of its actual value.
Within two weeks the gallery sold it on to German art collector Wolfgang Krueger at a 40 per cent profit.
According to his heirs, this undervalued purchase and subsequent rapid resale points towards the fact that Braunthal did not have a choice in the matter.
French law states that any art sold by Jews under Nazi occupation are deemed to have been “forced sales”.
However, the Met, which has held the painting since 2003, disagreed. It told the New York Times: “After undertaking a comprehensive and rigorous study of Max Braunthal’s sale of the painting to Pissarro’s dealer, Durand-Ruel, we believe the transaction was legitimate and that the work should remain in the Met’s collection.”
The Met added that it had a “well-documented history of restituting works of art when evidence demonstrates that they were unlawfully appropriated during the Nazi era”.
A French court ruling would not be legally binding in the US, according to lawyer Nicholas O’Donnell, who handles many restitution cases, but added that a favourable judgment could help the heirs launch a case in the US.
“On the merits,” he told the New York TImes, “if a French court nullifies the 1941 sale, the heirs would likely argue to a New York court that any subsequent title was incurably defective, and that it would revert to the victim’s heirs. That would be a strong argument standing alone.”
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