Rue St Honoré, Après-Midi, Effet de Pluie
Wiki
Millions of European Jews were forced to quickly sell their homes and businesses with WW2, their assets being confiscated by the Nazis. Works of art often seemed very significant to war heirs; they represented a last cultural connection to their dead families. I particularly thank Marilyn Henry.
Sadly there had been an intentional campaign of confiscation and destruction of European cultural property. Post-war, Allied Forces uncovered caches of looted goods and the U.S military returned millions of art objects to the countries of the works’ origin. But those nations were responsible for locating the actual heirs. Did they find them?
Once the Nazis sold the objects, the works entered the art market and were dispersed. Both the pre-war owner and the current owner may have had moral claims to the works, but legal ownership varied. Most Western legal systems couldn’t deal with losses from other decades, and from other countries. Claims could be barred because Statutes of Limitation expired. Or claims and the rights of a current possessor were confused when art crossed borders. Additionally most nations had laws that protected good-faith purchasers. And who could define a forced sale? Only Germany recognised some sales-under-duress.
In the U.S, most museums are private so ownership disputes were and are civil matters. The New York State Banking Dept established its Holocaust Claims Processing Office in 1997, to resolve claims without litigation. Since then, it accepted 142 art claims covering 25,000 objects. But the small staff of lawyers, linguists and historians only secured the VERY slow return of 12 art works!
Boulevard Montmartre, Morning, Cloudy Weather
NGV Melbourne
Also in the U.S, the Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal created a database linked to American museums, identifying thousands of items that had been in Europe from 1933-45. But while the portal could be searched by an artist’s name, country of origin and a painting’s name, it could not be searched by the family owner.
An artwork’s ownership chain was often patchy. There WAS a responsibility to participate in provenance research, but it was expensive. The paper trail about provenance history was often deposited in: multi-national settings, private family memorabilia, governmental or museum archives.
Some museums did no additional research to clarify the history, until a claimant came forward. Others eg North Carolina Museum of Art, took the initiative. Artworks with uncertain gaps of war-time ownership were reviewed by professional provenance researchers.
Museums and collectors are more willing to acknowledge legitimate claims than they were a decade ago, and to settle them without litigation. But of course museums and collectors still dispute tenuous claims. Most museums have put their entire collections on Web sites so now the assertion of claims is much easier than it was.
The size of wartime art thefts will never be known. The size of their return, through some heroic post-war efforts, was very great. But those efforts were eventually seen as inconsistent with foreign policy, or reflecting cold war tensions by the 1960s. Only West Germany paid partial compensation to some claimants; read Nazi Confiscated Art Issues.
Boulevard Montmartre Spring
Courtauld Institute of Art
These days attention to war-era ownership is emerging in the art world. Major auction houses and museums have provenance researchers, so sellers and buyers routinely check objects with the Art Loss Register - an international database of lost and stolen art formed in 1991 by auction houses and art traders. Unfortunately this did not happen 50 years ago.. when scrutiny could have helped.
As more artwork is identified and located, other nations are questioning the ownership of their holdings. A number of European countries eg Austria and Britain have enacted restitution policies or established independent panels to review claims. However these review processes didn’t ensure the recovery of looted art, even with clear evidence. Many claimants, especially the children whose parents died in the Holocaust, continued to be frustrated at the expense and time required to pursue a work.
Courtauld Institute of Art
These days attention to war-era ownership is emerging in the art world. Major auction houses and museums have provenance researchers, so sellers and buyers routinely check objects with the Art Loss Register - an international database of lost and stolen art formed in 1991 by auction houses and art traders. Unfortunately this did not happen 50 years ago.. when scrutiny could have helped.
As more artwork is identified and located, other nations are questioning the ownership of their holdings. A number of European countries eg Austria and Britain have enacted restitution policies or established independent panels to review claims. However these review processes didn’t ensure the recovery of looted art, even with clear evidence. Many claimants, especially the children whose parents died in the Holocaust, continued to be frustrated at the expense and time required to pursue a work.
The same Pissarro painting in Lilly Cassirer’s Berlin flat, c1930.
artnet news
In 2001 in the US, grandson Claude Cassirer (1921-2010) found the painting after years of searching and spent five years trying to recover the Pissarro through diplomatic channels. Finally Claude filed a federal lawsuit in California against Spain and against Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation to recover the painting, now worth $40mill.
Lilly Cassirer Neubauer and her beloved heir grandson Claude, born Berlin 1921Claude's mother died flu 1921; Claude's grandmother loved and raised the child
There were 15 Camille Pissarros (1830–1903) that were painted from his Paris hotel room window. One version was called Boulevard Montmartre, spring morning, moved through the hands of two of my favourite art dealers: Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris who acquired it from the artist in June 1898; and Paul Cassirer in Berlin who acquired it from Durand-Ruel in Oct 1902.
Now consider Lilly Cassirer and her second husband Otto Neubauer, who swapped a beautiful Camille Pissarro impressionist painting for their freedom. A Nazi-appointed appraiser forced her to sell Rue St Honoré, Après-Midi, Effet de Pluie for $360 then. But when the couple fled Munich in 1939, they could not take the funds. Lilly’s first husband Fritz Cassirer, from the prominent German Jewish family of publishers and art dealers, had bought the painting from Pissarro’s agent in 1900.
Although the post-war German government voided the sale, Lilly never recovered the Pissarro. It was sold multiple times. In 1993, the Spanish government paid $350 million for the collection of industrialist-Nazi supporter Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and placed in their Museum.
In 2001 in the US, grandson Claude Cassirer (1921-2010) found the painting after years of searching and spent five years trying to recover the Pissarro through diplomatic channels. Finally Claude filed a federal lawsuit in California against Spain and against Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation to recover the painting, now worth $40mill.
itsartlaw
Claude Cassirer learned the painting was at the Thyssen-Bornemisza in 2000 and petitioned Spain and the museum to return it. See the legal proceedings: the District Court case was in 2006, the first appeal was 2009-10, the second appeal was 2013, the Spanish Law case was 2015 and a last decision was in 2019. Whose law should apply, Spain’s or the USA’s? In 2024 the U.S Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit awarded the painting to the Spanish museum; it was legally bound to decide the case using Spanish law because the thefts occurred there. The Cassirers appealed the 9th Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court which vacated the Circuit Court of Appeals decision. It will now have to reconsider the case in light of the new California law on holocaust survivors' right to reclaim looted art.
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