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A Texas art museum made headlines last week defending its ownership of a painting on loan to an exhibition in Germany. The painting in question, Henri Edmond Cross’ “Regatta in Venice” is being claimed as Nazi-looted art by heirs of the Jewish French collector Gaston Levy. The piece is currently on loan for a show at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam by Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The heirs have filed a request for the painting’s return, claiming it was stolen from their family during the Nazi’s art-looting escapades during World War II.
The Houston museum made a legal filing in Potsdam, asserting no proof has been presented to indicate the plaintiffs are the rightful heirs of Levy. The museum said Levy, who filed claims for other Cross pieces from his collection in 1956, did not claim compensation for “Regatta in Venice.”
Christoph Partsch, lawyer of the heirs, said the painting was taken by the Nazis in 1940. His clients, who have chosen to stay anonymous at this time, only recently found out about the missing piece from Levy’s collection.
According to the Houston museum’s records, the painting was restituted to Natasha Flieglers, a Paris-based collector in 1949. She consigned the piece for sale to the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York in 1953. Oveta Culp Hobby purchased the painting the following year and donated it to the museum in 1958.
This is not the first time American museums have found themselves in artwork disputes with the descendants of Jewish collectors whose collections were seized by the Nazis. In 2015, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma went to court with families hoping to recover valuable assets.
The pieces at stake were two 16th century wood panels of “Adam” and “Eve” by Lucas Cranach the Elder at the Norton Simon, and Camille Pissaro’s “Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep” at the University of Oklahoma.
The Pissaro was given to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum in 2000 by Aaron and Clara Weitzenhoffer, who purchased the piece from the David Findlay Galleries in New York in 1956. The painting had been seized from a French bank in 1941 and moved to Switzerland, where it was acquired by a dealer.
When the painting’s whereabouts were realized, a suit was made in Swiss courts to have the piece returned to its owner. The claim was rejected.
Neither the Norton Simon museum nor the Fred Jones Jr. Museum acted to deny the pieces were stolen. Instead, their representation argued the claimants had not moved fast enough to try to recover their lost assets.
Advocacy groups insist these accusatory strategies used by museums make it more challenging for looted art to be returned to its rightful owners.
The World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO), created to advocate for the return of Jewish property seized during the Holocaust, released a report in June 2015 regarding unfair practices used in artwork disputes. The organization called on the federal government to pass legislation to help victims get a proper hearing. The report noted the Oklahoma and Norton Simon disputes. WJRO believes it was the responsibility of the University of Oklahoma to properly research the ownership history of the Pissaro when the piece was acquired back in 2000.
Advocates believe American art museums have repeatedly failed to follow the guidelines set forth by the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, originally spearheaded by American diplomat Stuart Eizenstat. Signed by 44 nations in 1998, this document was meant to return over 600,000 pieces of art stolen from Jewish art collectors by the Nazis to whom it rightfully belonged.
For many families who were incarcerated in concentration camps during the war, their art collection archives were destroyed and replaced with counterfeit documents by the Nazis. When researching collections and resolving claims, an alarming number of museums around the world rely on Nazi-produced records as proof of legitimate sales of artwork.
The U.S. has a reputation for recovering national treasures stolen by the Nazis. As a younger generation is asked to grapple with the question of what is moral in these artwork disputes, remember the brave work of the Monuments Men and the dedication they showed as they fought to return priceless pieces to their owners.
