US court rejects lawsuit against Spanish museum Automatic translate

A court in the Central District of California (USA) rejected the lawsuit by an American, who demanded the return of a painting by Camille Pissarro at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. According to the plaintiff, the painting was stolen from his grandmother back in 1939. The court motivated its decision by the fact that the issue is in the US federal jurisdiction related to international relations.

The subject of this legal dispute is the canvas “Rue St. Honore, Apres-midi, Effet de pluie”, which depicts a Paris street scene painted in 1897. Since 1993, the painting has been on permanent display at the Museum in Madrid, along with the rest of the collection of Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza.

The lawsuit was filed in 2005 by photographer Claude Cassirer, and despite the fact that the plaintiff died in September 2010, at the age of 89, the case is still pending in court, and lawyers are demanding the transfer of a masterpiece, cost 1,370,000 euros, from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Fund for the personal use of the Cassirer heirs.

From the case materials it is known that the plaintiff’s grandmother, Jewish by birth, Lily Cassirer Neubauer, was forced to get rid of the picture in an attempt to obtain a visa. After the war, Lilly Cassirer claimed the rights to the painting in court, and in 1958 the German government recognized her as the rightful owner and paid her 120,000 marks in compensation.

Until 2002, California law provided for a three-year statute of limitations for art-related disputes. However, in cases where the essence of the dispute was related to repression in Nazi Germany, the statute of limitations was generally canceled. This created an unprecedented legal framework, within the framework of which several lawsuits were filed at once to return art objects illegally seized during the Second World War.

Now the claim of Claude Cassirer’s heirs will be referred to the US federal court, where, according to experts, it will be rejected due to the inconclusiveness of the arguments presented. A few years ago, Cassirer already tried to return the picture through a petition to the Spanish government, but also to no avail.

Anna Sidorova