The US Supreme Court announced that it will take up the case of a priceless impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro that was confiscated from the family of a French Jewish woman by the Nazis.
The case rests on the ownership of the painting, a legal fight that has been ongoing for 15 years.
The 1897 painting was sold under duress to the Nazis in 1939 by Lilly Cassirer, a Jewish woman who lived in Berlin.
When the war ended, the painting could not be found. Cassirer was given $13,000 in restitution, reported Courthouse News.
In 2000, Cassirer’s grandson discovered the painting on display in Madrid’s Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. He went on to file a lawsuit in California, where the painting had previously been part of a private collection.
The museum has argued that it acted in good faith when it purchased the Pissarro from Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza in 1993, saying that it had no idea of the painting’s provenance.
Under Spanish law, the museum is the rightful owner of the painting.
The Supreme Court will decide whether US law of California state law applies in the case. US federal law would defer to Spanish law. According to ARTnews, the descendants of Cassierer are banking on the argument that the case rests under California law, in which case the painting would be considered stolen property and thus be returned to the family.
In a similar recent case, 81-year old French Jewish heiress Leone Meyer renounced her intentions in July to have a different Pissarro painting looted from her family by the Nazis restituted from the University of Oklahoma, in whose gallery it has resided, in order to end a battle with the school, reported AFP.
That case had been ongoing for well over a decade.
In 2016, Meyer won a legal case and was officially declared the owner of the painting. However, under the terms of the deal she had made with the University of Oklahoma, she was unable to have the painting transported back to France where she could bequeath it to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, a well known museum of impressionist artworks.