A Modigliani painting has been returned to its rightful owner’s estate more than 80 years after it was confiscated by the Nazis.
The estate of Oscar Stettiner, a British-born Jewish art dealer in Paris, has been engaged in a lengthy legal battle to retrieve the painting. This came to an end on Friday, when New York Supreme Court Judge Joel M. Cohen ruled that the 1918 painting Seated Man With a Cane by Amadeo Modigliani must be returned to Stettiner’s estate.
“Oscar Stettiner owned or, at a minimum, had a superior right of possession of the painting before its unlawful seizure,” Cohen wrote in the court decision, noting that Stettiner “never voluntarily relinquished it.”
Stettiner, a British national, fled Paris in 1939 when the Nazis moved to occupy France. He left his gallery behind. A man appointed by the Nazis to destroy Jewish properties looted the premises and sold the painting in 1944 without permission from Stettiner’s estate.
In 1946, a French court ruled that the painting be returned to Stettiner; however, it had already been sold, and then resold to an unnamed US military officer, and Stettiner died in 1948 before it was located.
The painting was put up for auction in 1996 and purchased by the International Art Center (IAC) for $2.2 million.
Stettiner’s sole heir files lawsuit to recover painting
In 2015, Stettiner’s grandson and sole heir, Philippe Maestracci, joined forces with Mondex – a company focused on restitution of looted art and other cultural property – to file a lawsuit and recover the work from the IAC, but was not immediately successful, as the art center claimed the painting in its possession was not the same as Stettiner’s.
A breakthrough came the following year, when the IAC was revealed in the Panama Papers to be owned by the Nahmad family: a dynasty of Syrian-Lebanese Jewish art dealers, recognized for holding one of the world’s largest private art collections.
Secret records obtained from a Panamanian law firm by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and others showed that the family controlled the Panama-based IAC for more than 20 years, and family leader David Nahmad, the family leader, has been the company’s sole owner since January 2014. Moreover, the painting had been exhibited in New York City in 2005 at Helly Nahmad Gallery.
Nahmad originally denied the connection to the IAC and said that the painting was his. Notwithstanding, after Swiss prosecutors raided a Geneva storage facility and confiscated the painting, Nahmad admitted his ownership of the IAC.
He said, however, that he bought the Modigliani in good faith and even loaned it in 2004 to the Jewish Museum in New York.
Meanwhile, Nahmad’s lawyer resisted Maestracci’s claims, saying there was no proof the painting was the same work Stettiner had owned.
Richard Golub, a lawyer for the IAC and Nahmad, said in a 2016 interview, “Do you think that Christie’s would sell a painting that they thought was looted by the Nazis? I doubt it. You know, no auction house would do that. They completely researched the painting, and there was nothing in the provenance that would indicate that there was a claim by anybody, including Mr. Stettiner.”
In Friday’s ruling, the judge concluded that “The evidence shows a straightforward and persuasive chain of ownership/right of possession flowing directly from Mr. Stettiner to Nazi seizure to a forced sale,” ruling that the painting was the same as the one in Stettiner’s possession.
He agreed that Nahmad had no relationship with the painting until the 1996 purchase and was not responsible for its original resales, but that this did not change the fact that Stettiner’s estate had a right to the work.
“Our client, Mr. Maestracci, is overwhelmed with joy and the satisfaction that after so many years, the quest of his grandfather has finally been fulfilled,” said James Palmer, Mondex’s founder.
The painting is now valued at £25 million.
