Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Man Demands Nazi-Looted Modigliani

MANHATTAN (CN) - A French man claims a New York City art gallery refuses to return to him an Amedeo Modigliani painting that his grandfather owned until Nazis forced him to sell it during World War. Philippe Maestracci sued the Helly Nahmad Gallery, seeking return of the 1918 Modigliani painting, "Seated Man With a Cane."

Maestracci says he is sole heir of Oscar Stettiner, a Jewish art dealer who owned a Paris art gallery, and the Modigliani painting.

Maestracci says in his federal complaint that the Nazis had "a practice and policy of despoiling Jewish families of property located in the occupied zone by forced sales." Maestracci says his grandfather, Stettiner, loaned the painting in 1930 to the Venice Biennale, a world-famous art exhibition. In 1939 Stettiner was forced to flee Paris "with the threat of Nazi invasion looming," leaving his art collection behind.

In 1941, the Nazis appointed Marcel Philippon a temporary administrator to sell Stettiner's property, Maestracci says. Philippon sold the painting on July 3, 1944 without Stettiner's consent, and despite his attempts after the war, Stettiner was unable to find the painting to recover it, Maestracci says.

Stettiner died in 1948. Since then his heirs "have made reasonable and diligent efforts" to find his art collection, Maestracci says. He says he located it in 2008, when Sotheby's published it as being consigned for sale by the Helly Nahmad Gallery.

Maestracci says he wrote to the gallery demanding the return of the painting, but it failed to respond. He claims that under New York law, "the July 3, 1944 sale was void since it occurred without the owner's consent in violation of international law and New York's law and public policy not to recognize forced sales under the Nazi regime."

Maestracci seeks declaratory judgment that the painting is his, and wants the gallery ordered to deliver it. He is represented by Raymond Dowd, with Dunnington, Bartholow, and Miller.

Modigliani (1884-1920), a highly regarded painter and sculptor best known for his portraits, died of tuberculosis in Paris at 35.

Follow @jamierossCNS
Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...