Stephanie G. Mathis A Spanish museum is allowed to keep a Camille Pissarro stolen during World War II from a Jewish Family.
Kevin Rector, Los Angeles Times, reported that the ruling was a major blow to the family. The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Pasadena, CA, and California unanimously decided that the artwork would remain at the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, which purchased it in 1993.
The painting is Pissarro’s Rue Saint-Honore, Afternoon Effect of Rain from 1897. Alex Riggins of the San Diego Union-Tribune believes that it could be worth more than $30 million.
Pissarro painted a busy street scene while sitting in his hotel room. The Impressionist masterwork belonged to Lilly Cassirer’s family for more than 40 years. In 1939 the Nazis forced Lilly Cassirer to sell her painting to a Berlin art dealer for 900 Reichsmarks (about 360 dollars today). They also gave her an exit visa from Germany to England. She never received her payment. It was placed in a bank she could not access.
Lilly tried to recover the painting after the war but was told that it had been destroyed in bombings. Christopher Kuo of the New York Times reported that the West German government paid the family $265,000 today for the loss. Lilly died without knowing what happened to the painting in 1966.
In 2000, Claude Cassirer learned that the painting was displayed at the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Cassirer, who was born in 1921, had fond memories of seeing the Pissarro at his grandmother’s apartment. He also had a photo to prove it. The officials at Spain’s Ministry of Culture refused to return the painting when Claude contacted them. Claude filed a suit in 2005.
Since then, the high-profile case has still been making its way through the court system. After Claude’s 2010 death, the case was managed by David, Ava, and the United Jewish Federation of San Diego County.
It was a question of whether California law or Spanish law should be applied. Spanish law would allow the museum to retain ownership of the painting as long as it acquired it in good faith, unaware of the theft. California law would, however, require that the painting be returned.
The lower courts initially ruled for the museum because they believed the case should be decided by Spanish law. In the end, the U.S. Supreme Court took the case and sent it back to the Ninth Circuit by 2022.
The federal appeals court decided last week that Spanish law was applicable. Consuelo Calahan wrote in a concurring opinion that the Spanish government should have “voluntarily” relinquished the painting. This was despite the fact that it had no legal obligation to do this. She wrote that “sometimes our oaths and our understanding of our roles as appellate judges require us to agree with a result that is at odds with the moral compass.” This is a case in point.
The attorneys for the family said in a statement that they were disappointed by the ruling, which, according to the L.A. Times, “fails” to explain why Spain would have any interest in using its laws to wash the spoils from war. This practice was outlawed by the Hague Convention in 1907 and by a number of other international treaties to which Spain has been a party for more than a century. Times. The museum’s lawyers say the court’s ruling is “a welcomed conclusion to this matter.”
The Cassirers plan to continue fighting, and their lawyers have said they will ask for a review of the case by a panel of 11 judges from the Ninth Circuit.
The lawyers for the Cassirer family say that the decision of last week “gives green light to looters all over the world.” The Cassirers feel that in light of today’s antisemitism, particularly in the United States and abroad, it is important to challenge Spain’s refusal to remove Nazi-looted artwork.
