[MSN] Madrid's Thyssen Museum to appeal U.S. decision on disputed Pissarro painting

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

MADRID, Spain (AP) - One of the world's top museums said Friday it will appeal a U.S. court decision to keep open a lawsuit seeking the return of a disputed Impressionist masterpiece allegedly stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family during the Second World War.

The case involves ownership of "Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie," a Parisian street scene painted by Camill Pissarro in 1897, which is estimated to be worth US$20 million.

On Aug. 30, a court in Los Angeles rejected a motion by the Spanish government to dismiss a lawsuit by Claude Cassirer of San Diego, California, who says his family is the rightful owner. Cassirer, 85, says his grandmother was forced to sell the painting in 1939 for just $360 as a precondition of her fleeing Germany.

The painting has been on display at Madrid's state-owned Thyssen-Bornemisza museum since 1993, when the Spanish government paid $250 million to buy the Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen's collection. The museum boasts one of the richest collection of artworks in the world.

"We are the owners of this painting," Carlos Fernandez de Henestrosa, managing director of the Thyssen Foundation, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

"We have documents that prove that the Baron Thyssen was the legitimate buyer in 1976. It is ours until proven otherwise," he added. Fernandez de Henestrosa would not comment on Cassirer's claim that the painting was stolen nearly three decades prior to the baron's purchase.

He said lawyers representing both the Thyssen Museum and the Spanish government in the United States will appeal the ruling in the next few days, adding that he believes the U.S. court should not have jurisdiction in the case, since the painting is in Spain.

He also questioned why Cassirer waited so long to make his claim.

"The painting has been on display publicly for more than 25 years. We've never hidden it and it has been exhibited in other countries," he said. "If Mr. Cassirer was so interested in it, he could have found the painting very easily."

The 1897 painting depicts a Parisian boulevard lined with dark carriages, a few bare trees and a scattering of people braving the weather. It apparently changed hands several times after the war and its whereabouts were a mystery to the Cassirer family until a friend spotted it in the Madrid museum in 2000.

The baron bought it in 1976 at a New York Gallery and included it in the 800 works sold to the Spanish government in 1993, Fernandez de Henestrosa said. The baron died in 2002.

Cassirer's lawsuit was bolstered by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2004 that allowed California resident Maria Altmann, 88, to sue the government of Austria to retrieve $150 million worth of Gustav Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis. The five Klimts were handed over by Austria in January to Altmann and other family members following a seven-year legal battle.

An estimated 600,000 works of art were stolen by the Nazis during Adolf Hitler's rule in Germany.

http://www.brandonsun.com/