CNN
—
A Pablo Picasso painting sold by a German Jewish businessman to fund his escape from Nazis should stay in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, an appeals court has ruled.
On Wednesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the businessman’s great-grandniece had left an “unreasonable” delay in demanding the return of the Picasso painting ‘The Actor’.
The painting had belonged to Paul and Alice Leffmann, who sold the artwork to a private dealer in 1938 to raise funds to flee fascist Italy for Switzerland. The couple, who were German Jews, had already fled the Nazi regime in Germany.
Laurel Zuckerman, the Leffmann’s great-grandniece, argued that her ancestors sold the “masterwork” for $12,000 under duress, therefore voiding the transaction.
Chief Judge Katzmann recognized that following the horrors of the Nazi era, there was a need to provide “some measure of justice, albeit incomplete” to victims and their heirs.
However, he wrote that there was an “unreasonable” delay in the demand for the return of the artwork.
The court noted that despite the fact that the painting had been in the Met’s collection since 1952 – and its provenance published in the Met’s catalogue since 1967 – no demands for its return were made until 2010 – 58 years after museum acquired the art work.
Duane Tinkey/DSM Magazine
The "Apollo and Venus" painting by 16th-century Dutch master Otto van Veen (1556-1629) was discovered in the closet of an art gallery in Iowa, and is likely worth over $4 million.
Scroll through the gallery for other examples of lost and found artworks.
Bonhams
One of a triptych of artworks created by Ben Enwonwu during the aftermath of Nigeria's bloody civil war, "Tutu" disappeared shortly after being painted in 1974. Its whereabouts remained the subject of intense speculation for over 40 years before the portrait was discovered in a family home late last year. In March, it sold for over $1.6 million (£1,205,000).
Courtesy The Parker Gallery
"Two Hacks" (1789) by George Stubbs was sold at a Christie's
"Living with Art" sale in New York in June 2016 -- originally listed as a copy. Art dealer Archie Parker -- believing it to be a real Stubbs -- purchased the painting for $175,000 ($215,000 with premium). The painting is currently hanging on his stand at the annual
British Antique Dealers' Association (BADA) Fair in London, with an asking price of $900,000.
Courtesy: C.Cordes/Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum
Rembrandt's drawing of a dog has been in the collection of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, Germany, since 1770, but was long thought to be the work of a different artist.
Courtesy Tajan
In 2016, a drawing attributed to Italian master Leonardo da Vinci was discovered in Paris, after a portfolio of works was brought to Tajan auction house for valuation by a retired doctor. It was valued at 15 million euros ($16 million).
Courtesy Tajan
The drawing also features sketches of light and shadows and notes on the back.
Courtesy National Trust for Scotland
While researching for an episode of BBC's "Britain's Lost Masterpieces" series at the National Trust for Scotland's Haddo House collection in Aberdeenshire, art historian Bendor Grosvenor and a team of experts found a painting that could have been painted by artist Raphael.
Reuters
In April 2016, a painting believed to be by Caravaggio was found in an attic in France. Experts said it could be worth $136 million.
Courtesy National Trust for Scotland
The work was originally purchased for $25 dollars at the end of the 19th century. It could now be worth $26 million.
JEAN-PIERRE MULLER/AFP/Getty Images
In 1911, Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian who had been a handyman for the museum. The famous painting was recovered two years later.
courtesy Art Recovery
A statue called "Young Girl with Serpent" by Auguste Rodin was stolen from a home in Beverly Hills, California, in 1991. It was returned after someone offered it on consignment to Christie's auction house. Rodin, a French sculptor considered by some aficionados to have been the father of modern sculpture, lived from 1840 until 1917. His most famous work, "The Thinker," shows a seated man with his chin on his hand.
AFP/Getty Images
Picasso's "La Coiffeuse" ("The Hairdresser") was
discovered missing in 2001 and was recovered when it was shipped from Belgium to the United States in December 2014. The shipper said it was a $37 piece of art being sent to the United States as a Christmas present. The feds say it was actually a stolen Picasso, missing for more than a decade and worth millions of dollars.
ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images
Italy's Culture Ministry unveils two paintings by the French artists Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard on April 2, 2014. The paintings,
worth millions of euros, were stolen from a family house in London in 1970, abandoned on a train and then later sold at a lost-property auction, where a factory worker paid 45,000 Italian lire for them -- roughly equivalent to 22 euros ($30).
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images
A Renoir painting finished in the 1800s, loaned to a museum, reported stolen in 1951 and then bought at a flea market in 2010 has to be returned to the museum, a judge ruled on January 10, 2014. The 5½-by-9-inch painting, titled "Landscape on the Banks of the Seine," was bought for $7 at a flea market by a Virginia woman. The estimated value is between $75,000 and $100,000.
Courtesy Interpol
Seven famous paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 2012, including Claude Monet's "Charing Cross Bridge, London." The paintings, in oil and watercolor, include Pablo Picasso's "Harlequin Head," Henri Matisse's "Reading Girl in White and Yellow," Lucian Freud's "Woman with Eyes Closed" and Claude Monet's "Waterloo Bridge," seen here. Works by Gauguin and Meyer de Haan were also taken.
New York County DA Office
Eight months after Salvador Dali's "Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio" was stolen in a New York gallery,
a Greek national was indicted on a grand larceny charge in 2013.
Courtesy wga.hu
In 1473, Hans Memling's "The Last Judgment" was stolen by pirates and became the first documented art theft.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Adam Worth, the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's diabolical character Moriarty, stole "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire," painted by Thomas Gainsborough in 1876.
REUTERS/Chris Pizzello /Landov
Among their many crimes, the Nazis plundered precious artworks as they gained power during World War II. "Adele Bloch-Bauer I," by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, was confiscated from the owner when he fled from Austria.
REUTERS /PHILIP SEARS /LANDOV
Many works of art that were taken by the Nazis were never recovered. Others were returned after years of legal battles. "Christ Carrying the Cross," by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani, was returned to his family in 2012.
REUTERS/Handout /Landov
"The Scream" was one of two Edvard Munch paintings that were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 2004.
REUTERS/Nelson Antoine /Landov
In 2007, Pablo Picasso's oil painting ''Portrait of Suzanne Bloch" was taken from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art. It was recovered two years later.
“Indeed, over seventy years passed between the sale of the painting in 1938 and Zuckerman’s demand that the Met return the Painting in 2010,” court documents noted.
The judge also said that “this is not a case where the identity of the buyer was unknown to the seller or the lost property was difficult to locate.”
Paul Leffman had made other restitution claims for Nazi-era losses but had never made any approach about the painting, the ruling stated.
“Neither the Leffmanns nor their heirs made a demand for the Painting until 2010. This delay was unreasonable, and it prejudiced the Met,” the court found. After so many years, a lack of living witnesses and documentary evidence, as well as faded memories and questionable hearsay testimony, would impede the resolution of the claim, it said.
In February, a lower district court also ruled in favor of the Met.
A Met spokesperson said in a statement that the museum “considers all Nazi-era claims thoroughly and responsibly,” and has previously returned unlawfully appropriated works.
The painting, created between 1904-1905, is described by the Met as “simple yet haunting.” In 2010, the painting had to undergo repair work after a visitor fell onto the painting and caused a 6-inch tear in the canvas.