(Germany’s highest court issued a much-anticipated ruling on a challenge by a collector to the listing of his painting in the so-called Lost Art database in Magdeburg, Germany. The Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) ruled that the listing will not be deleted where “based on true facts.” The ruling underscores the informative, rather than legal, nature of the database, which describes itself as documenting “cultural property that was either demonstrably seized from their owners between 1933 and 1945 as a result of Nazi persecution, or for which such a seizure cannot be ruled out.” Insofar as the case just decided involves a well-known victim of Nazi-persecution, the clarification is a welcome and important one. As always in this area, however, the hard cases are harder. The case stopped short of resolving more nuanced cases, or addressing what recourse a collector might have in situations where a listing effectively makes a painting impossible to sell. Perhaps the best course would be to take heed of the way the court decided this case: the database is a critical tool of information, but a less useful one when it comes to sorting out legal rights.
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Topics:
Lost Art Database,
Germany,
Bundesgerichtshof,
Van Gogh,
Magdeburg,
Nazi persecution,
BGH,
IFAR,
Art Loss Register,
A Tragic Fate,
Girl from the Sabine Mountains,
Francis Xavier Winterhalter,
Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Rémy,
Elizabeth Taylor,
German Lost Art Foundation,
Calabrian Coast,
Kalabrische Küste,
Concordia University,
Zentrum für Kulturgutverluste,
ALR,
Düsseldorf,
Bettina Brückner
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today dismissed the petition to rehear en banc last year’s landmark ruling that the heirs of the art dealers who sold the Guelph Treasure (or Welfenschatz) may pursue their claims in U.S. federal court. Defendants the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (the SPK, or Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in English) had argued that claims under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s expropriation exception such as these are not violations of international law and also require a claimant to exhaust remedies abroad, a position rejected by prior decisions of the D.C. Circuit and by today’s ruling as well.
Today’s decision confirms the first-of-its kind holding last year that a German state museum must face claims based on allegations of Nazi-looted art, a direct result of Germany’s failures through its so-called Advisory (often called Limbach) Commission to address seriously and comprehensively the state of Nazi-looted art in its national collections. In the five years since denying the Guelph Treasure claimants any meaningful attention, Germany has fumbled through the Gurlitt fiasco and attempted other various distractions like its new fitful attention to colonial art (with no real progress there either). Germany has repeatedly disparaged my clients by suggesting that the matter was already "decided on the merits" before Germany's Advisory Commission. This is false. The Advisory Commission renders non-binding recommendations to state museums and has been roundly criticized for its opinions in 2014 and 2015 in particular, when my clients were denied justice. There is no small irony in having to explain this in the context of Germany's request for a do-over after last year's ruling.
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Topics:
Third Reich,
Feist,
Prussia,
Germany,
Nazi-looted art,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
SPK,
Advisory Commission,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Hermann Goering,
expropriation exception”,
Nazi persecution,
Boy Leading a Horse,
NS Raubkunst,
J.S. Goldschmidt,
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation,
forced sale,
Zacharias Hackenbroch,
Welfenschatz,
I. Rosenbaum,
Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act,
HEAR Act,
Paul Körner,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Kunstgewerbemuseum
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed claims for ownership of Madame Soler by Pablo Picasso, currently at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Just as the relevance of Judge Jed Rakoff’s comments over another art restitution case brought by the heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy unexpectedly came to the fore recently, Judge Rakoff’s decision is now the most recent in a line of frustrations for the heirs of Mendelssohn Bartholdy, a victim of Nazi persecution in Berlin in the 1930s. The ramifications of this case may be fairly narrow, however, as the case was premised on allegations of specific transactions in New York rather than general allegations about the conduct of Germany. The claimants could appeal, or perhaps turn to the Limbach Commission if they could be heard (the Pinakothek is a subdivision of Germany for jurisdictional analysis, but it’s unclear at first blush if the Commission would view this claim as within its province).
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Topics:
Paul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy,
Berlin,
commercial activity exception,
Cornelius Gurlitt,
Florence Kesselstatt,
Judge Jed Rakoff,
Halldor Soehner,
Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat,
Julius Schoeps,
Upper East Side,
Prussia,
Max Liebermann,
Night Café,
Gurlitt Collection,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Preussen,
France,
State Paintings Collection,
Madame Soler,
Museum of Modern Art,
Edelgard von Lavergne-Peguilhen,
Van Gogh,
Munich,
Justin K. Thannhauser,
FSIA,
expropriation exception”,
Nazi persecution,
Boy Leading a Horse,
Restitution,
David Toren,
Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung,
Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture,
Free State of Bavaria,
World War II,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities,
Pinakothek der Moderne,
Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kult,
Bundesländer,
Altmann v. Republic of Austria,
Freistaat Bayern,
Le Moulin de la Galette,
Kurt Martin,
München,
Pablo Picasso,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Limbach Commission,
Wissenschaft und Kunst
