The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit yesterday affirmed the 2019 judgment that allowed the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Museum in Madrid to retain Camille Pissarro’s Rue St. Honoré, après-midi, effet de pluie (Rue St. Honoré, Afternoon, Rain Effect) (1892), a painting sold under duress by Lilly Cassirer to a Nazi in 1939. Absent rehearing by the full Ninth Circuit or Supreme Court review, the decision may bring to an end the Cassirers decades-old effort to win restitution of a painting that no one disputes is Nazi-looted art, yet the museum refuses to return. The result turns on the highly deferential standard of review for findings of fact by the trial court about the state of knowledge by Baron Hans-Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza when he acquired the painting in 1976. Yet the Ninth Circuit’s lack of enthusiasm for this result fairly leaps off the page, however, first with its decision to issue an unsigned opinion not for publication, and by seconding the District Court’s disappointment in the ruling under review “that Spain and TBC’s refusal to return the Painting to the Cassirers is inconsistent with Spain’s moral commitments under the Washington Principles [on Nazi-Confiscated Art] and Terezin Declaration.” The Court of Appeals’ statement about Spain and the museum that “It is perhaps unfortunate that a country and a government can preen as moralistic in its declarations, yet not be bound by those declarations” is a reminder of the limitations of these moral imperatives that, ironically, many current possessors argue are sufficient to address the problem of Nazi-looted art. It is absolutely true that moral principles often do not have the force of law. It is equally true, however, that flouting moral principles warrants moral sanction. And as multiple judges of the United States have found, Spain deserves just that.
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Topics:
Terezin Declaration,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection,
Rue St. Honoré après-midi êffet de pluie,
Claude Cassirer,
Cassirer,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
FSIA,
expropriation exception”,
Baron Hans-Heinrich Thyssen- Bornemisza,
Welfenschatz,
A Tragic Fate,
Reichskammer der bildenden Künste,
Jakob Scheidwimmer,
Reich Chamber of the Visual Arts,
Madrid
A recent report by the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) has made strong criticisms of American museums with respect to their handling of Nazi-looted art claims. In particular, the report criticizes the assertion of timeliness defenses such as statutes of limitations. The report focuses in particular on cases involving the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum at the University of Oklahoma. There is no state control over the vast proportion of art in America the way there is in most European countries, and thus, no possibility of singular, nationalized approaches. In response to the report, some of the museums mentioned have defended their strategies, though in some cases the players are talking past each other. What is undeniable is that whether as a function of the nature of U.S. museums (largely private, rather than public), it is hard to say there is a coordinated approach to the issue, good or bad. The report is lengthy and detailed, and well worth a read in depth that space here does not permit. In some ways, the question it poses boils down to this: is determining the historical truth the obligation of everyone involved or is there some room to prevail without addressing the larger issues?
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Topics:
Toledo Museum of Art,
Street Scene in Tahiti,
Léone Meyer’s,
American Association of Museums,
Two Nudes,
La bérgère,
AAMD Task Force on the Spoliation of Art during th,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection,
Rue St. Honoré après-midi êffet de pluie,
University of Oklahoma,
Cassirer,
Nazi-looted art,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
Fred Jones Jr. Museum,
Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art,
World Jewish Restitution Organization,
WJRO,
Association of Art Museum Directors,
Restitution,
American Alliance of Museums AAM,
World War II,
Paul Gaugin,
Camille Pissarro,
Oskar Kokoschka,
Museums,
Museum of Fine Arts Boston,
AAMD,
Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena
Raising another hurdle to restitution claims, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the Norton Simon Museum to the remnants of the famed Jacques Goudstikker collection, on the grounds that her case is preempted by the United States’ foreign affairs doctrine. In an unusually apologetic decision, the court ruled that regardless of the merits of her claims, the law of foreign affairs makes the dispute inappropriate for resolution by civil litigation.
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Topics:
Terezin Declaration,
Norton Simon Museum,
Hungary,
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection,
Jacques Goudstikker,
Cassirer,
Hungarian National Gallery,
George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff,
Holocaust Victims Redress Act,
Restitution,
Marei Von Saher,
World War II,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
Lucas Cranach the Elder,
Rue St. Honoré,
Camille Pissarro,
Göring,
Soviet Union,
Washington Principles,
California Code of Civil Procedure 354.3
After recent expansions of the scope of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has narrowed that statute’s route of access to the courthouse again. The 2nd Circuit affirmed on November 30, 2011 the District Court’s March 11, 2011 dismissal of Andrew Orkin’s claims to recover a Vincent Van Gogh drawing against the Swiss Confederation, the Oskar Reinhart Foundation, and the Oskar Reinhart Collection.
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Topics:
Von Saher,
Margarethe Mauthner,
Germany,
Cassirer,
Vincent Van Gogh,
FSIA,
Restitution,
World War II,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
Washington Principles
