[MSN] Nazi-looted art claimed by Montreal estate spirited out of U.S.

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Nazi-looted art claimed by Montreal estate spirited out of U.S. 
Last Updated: Monday, September 11, 2006 | 3:56 PM ET 
CBC Arts 

Two Montreal universities and the estate of a Montreal art collector are
involved in an international legal dispute in an attempt to reclaim
Nazi-looted art.

On the other side of the dispute is an elderly German baroness who has
removed a disputed painting, called Girl from Sabine Mountains, from her
U.S. home to Germany.

The painting was once part of the collection of Max Stern, who fled Germany
in 1937 after being forced by the Nazis to sell his inventory.

Stern, who became a prominent art collector and dealer in Montreal, died in
1987, leaving his estate to a foundation that benefits Concordia and McGill
universities in Montreal and Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.

Concordia University announced in March 2005 that it had found some of the
250 works from Stern's collection that had gone missing and was spearheading
an effort to get the works returned.

The university, working with Stern's estate, started negotiations to recover
some of the pieces, including Girl from Sabine Mountains, painted by Franz
X. Winterhalter and valued at about $150,000 US.

Painting inherited from Nazi official

Maria-Louise Bissonnette, 82, a resident of Providence, R.I., had inherited
the painting from her late stepfather, Dr. Karl Wilharm, a high-ranking Nazi
official.

She has said she is willing to hand over the painting, but that Stern was
fully paid for the artwork, and she wants to be compensated.

"There's no question it was a forced sale, and it has never been her
intention to keep that work of art from the Max Stern estate," said
Bissonnette's Boston lawyer, John Weltman, in an interview with the Boston
Globe.

"She simply wants a court to determine to whom the work belongs, and if she
has to return it, the issue is how much she's entitled to be paid."

Stern's Montreal estate has hired lawyers to fight for the return of the
painting, which they say Stern sold under duress.

He received none of the sale's proceeds when he was forced out of Germany in
1937, they said.

The painting was located in January 2005 at a Rhode Island auction house
when the Stern estate and the universities were making an international
search for works that originally belonged to Stern.

They have been working with the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, a New
York state agency that recovers lost or looted art. Agency officials began
negotiations with Bissonnette, but the talks dragged on unsuccessfully for
more than a year.

Heir acted in 'bad faith'

In April officials at the Holocaust Claims Processing Office were notified
that Bissonnette had taken the painting to Germany and had asked a Cologne
court to declare her its rightful owner.

U.S. courts usually rule that Nazi-looted art must be returned to its
original owner and Bissonnette may have taken the painting to Germany in
search of an overseas court sympathetic to her position.

The Holocaust Claims Processing Office has termed the move "bad faith" and
the Stern estate has sued both Bissonnette and the auction house.

"In 20 years of doing this, I have never seen somebody with the nerve or
chutzpah or audacity, after over a year of good-faith negotiations, to
respond to the situation by taking the painting physically out of the
country," said Willi Korte, a specialist in locating Nazi-looted art who is
working with the Stern estate.

Concordia University meanwhile is intensifying efforts to recover all of
Stern's stolen art.

More than 40 works have been located and negotiations are under way on their
recovery, the university said in a statement.

Concordia art historian Clarence Epstein said he believed most of the owners
were not knowingly holding Nazi-looted art.

"I have to give them the benefit of the doubt," he said. "This whole process
is about educating people regarding a bygone era and place that the years
have erased."

http://www.cbc.ca/