Looted art laundering networks in the USA: Cassirer v Thyssen

Rue St. Honoré, après midi, effet de pluie by Camille Pissarro is the object of a claim for restitution: Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation

 "By 1951, the Painting had made its way to the U.S. after changing hands several times in Germany. In July, the Frank Perls Gallery (“Perls”) in Beverly Hills, California, sold the Painting to an art collector, Sidney Brody, for $14,850.^[11]Less than a year later, in February of 1952, Perls (for Brody) consigned the Painting with Knoedler Gallery (which you may remember for other reasons) for sale in New York.^[12]Missouri-based art collector, Sydney Schoenberg, was next to purchase the Painting; he sold it through New York’s Stephen Hahn Gallery several years later on consignment in 1975 or 1976"

- Case Review: Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, Center for Art Law

https://itsartlaw.org/2019/06/12/case-review-cassirer-v-thyssen-bornemisza-collection-foundation/

https://archive.is/N01Tn#selection-839.0-855.186

On Sidney Brody's rapid return of the Pissarro to Perls, see Iker Seisdedos's article in El Pais: "The Thyssen’s disputed Pissarro: a masterpiece that symbolizes the ongoing struggle to return Nazi-looted art":

"The painting arrived in Los Angeles in the possession of a German merchant called Frank Perls, who was Jewish – “ironically,” notes Cassirer, who describes him as a “super-thief.” During the war, Perls had worked as a translator for the US Army. He sold the work to a noted art lover called Sidney Brody, who was also Jewish and returned it a few months later because, according to Cassirer, he found out that it was a looted piece. A year later, Perls sold the painting again to the heir to a department store fortune in Saint Louis, where it remained for 20 years. It was offered to Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza through a well-known New York dealer, Stephen Hahn."

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022-05-21/the-thyssens-disputed-pissarro-a-masterpiece-that-symbolizes-the-ongoing-struggle-to-return-nazi-looted-art.html

https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=VGPS0A541611

On Stephen Hahn, see the 2005 lawsuit filed against him jointly by two different families who were seeking to reclaim Holocaust-linked art. Artnews reported on the lawsuit in "Judge Supports Suit to Reclaim Profits from Nazi Loot".  

"NEW YORK—A California judge has ruled that two families may proceed with their lawsuit against art dealer Stephen Hahn to recover the profits Hahn is alleged to have earned on sales, some 30 years ago, of works by Pablo Picasso and Camille Pissarro that had been looted during World War II. This is believed to be the first case in the U.S. in which the heirs of Nazi victims have sought compensation from an intermediary.

Claude Cassirer and Thomas C. Bennigson had filed the joint complaint in Santa Barbara, Calif., against Hahn, former president of the Art Dealers Association of America, on July 19. They claimed that Hahn had sold the two paintings without the consent of the legal owners and therefore must hold the profits for them. All three men live in California."

The Artnews article mentions two separate cases in which Hahn played a role. One was Picasso's Femme en Blanc :

"The Picasso was looted by the Nazis in 1940 from Paris art dealer Justin K. Thannhauser, to whom it had been sent for safekeeping by Bennigson’s grandmother Carlota Landsberg, of Berlin. Dealer Hahn imported the painting from France in 1975 and sold it a year later to James and Marilyn Alsdorf of Chicago for $357,000, the complaint states. Bennigson located the Picasso, now worth some $10 million, in 2002, when Marilyn Alsdorf prepared to sell the painting, and the Art Loss Register identified it as stolen. Bennigson has filed a separate claim against Marilyn Alsdorf."

(see also: "The FBI seizes disputed Picasso" Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-27-et-quick27.5-story.html) 27 Oct 2004 — The circa-1922 painting, “Femme en Blanc” (Woman in White) is believed to have been stolen by the Nazis during World War II from the grandmother of Oakland-based heir Thomas Bennigson. The painting was purchased in 1975 by Chicago art collectors James and Marilyn Alsdorf before its tie to the Nazis was discovered. In 2002, Bennigson sued to have the painting returned to him. Although the painting has been taken into U.S. custody, an FBI spokeswoman said Tuesday that the artwork will remain in Alsdorf’s residence until the courts can determine the rightful owner. )

The other was Pissarro's Rue St. Honoré, après midi, effet de pluie:

"Cassirer’s grandmother Lilly Cassirer-Neubauer, of Munich, was forced to sell the Pissarro to a Nazi agent in 1939 for a nominal amount before she fled from Germany. Hahn subsequently acquired the painting and, circa 1976, sold it to Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, who later transferred it over to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation in Madrid."

Nazi-looted art provenance research: names to verify in provenance texts of art museums

Names of Concern to verify in Art Provenances for European artworks created before 1945 and acquired after 1932, contains persons and organisations

(Wikidata Queries run January 25, 2025)

Merges persons of concern and organisations of concern in Nazi looted art and includes, where available Status,  GND, VIAF, Proveana and LCCN identifiers as well as alternate spellings for entity matching in provenance texts.

Download data in CSV format

Url of Public Google Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTuf7QIW4T15_5YJURSlvhZalwsdVrCNHiv5Iq4PaY-AepMw-rovx4aw9cleEI8S3NPInv4uMk9S5XD/pub?gid=103406480&single=true&output=csv

Description: 

The dataset contains 745 entries and 10 columns, with the following details:

1. Columns Overview:

   • item: Contains Wikidata URIs for the entities.
   • itemLabel: Labels or names of the entities.
   • itemDescription: Descriptions of the entities.
   • status: Provides information on the entity's status (e.g., related to Holocaust restitution cases or flagged as red flags).
   • altNames: Alternative names for the entities; this column has some missing values (449 non-null out of 745).
   • GND: German National Library identifiers; partially populated (423 non-null).
   • Proveana: Proveana-related identifiers; partially populated (132 non-null).
   • VIAF: Virtual International Authority File identifiers; partially populated (488 non-null).
   • LCCN: Library of Congress Control Numbers; partially populated (302 non-null).
   • RunDate: The date when the data was run/compiled.

Austrian Advisory Board Recommended That Albertina Restitute Franz Seraph von Lenbach Richard Wagner Inv. no. 38637 to Parlagi

 https://provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Parlagi_Adalbert_2022-03-30_english.pdf

[unofficial translation]

In accordance with Section 3 of the Federal Law on the Restitution of Art Objects from Austrian Federal Museums and Collections (Art Restitution Act), Federal Law Gazette, BGBl. I No. 181/1998 as amended by BGBl. I No. 117/2009, at its meeting on 30 March 2022, the Art Restitution Advisory Board unanimously adopted the following

DECISION

It is recommended to the Federal Minister of Art, Culture, Civil Service and Sport that the chalk drawing listed in the Commission for Provenance Research dossier “Adalbert Parlagi” (03/2022)

Franz Seraph von Lenbach

Richard Wagner

Inv. no. 38637
be transferred from the Albertina to the legal successors causa mortis of Adalbert Parlagi.

Osthaus Museum Hagen restitutes Renoir "View of the Sea from Haut Cagnes" to heirs of Jakob Goldschmidt (1882-1955)

Jakob Goldschmidt (1882-1955) was one of the most important bankers of the Weimar Republic. Persecuted by the National Socialist regime, Goldschmidt fled Germany in the spring of 1933 and emigrated to the USA via Switzerland in 1936. His German citizenship was revoked in 1940 and his assets were confiscated the following year. 

Goldschmidt's art collection was auctioned off on September 25, 1941 at the Hans W. Lange auction house in Berlin. 

The Renoir painting Blick von Haut Cagnes aufs Meer (cat. no. 45) (View of the Sea from Haut Cagnes) was purchased by Hildegard Diehn, the wife of Wehrmacht officer Wilhelm Diehn. In 1960 the Renoir was at the Nathan Gallery in Zurich, where it was acquired by Prof. Gustav Stein from Cologne, a member of the Federation of German Industries. He passed the painting on to Fritz Berg, President of the South Westphalian Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Hagen in 1948 and the first BDI President from 1949. After the death of his widow, Hildegard Berg, the Berg art collection was transferred to the Osthaus Museum Hagen. 

- source: press release from Osthaus Museum Hagen https://www.osthausmuseum.de/web/de/keom/presse/renoir2023.html

The Art Loss Register Ltd Speech given at a Symposium in Amsterdam on 30th January 2008 hosted by Sotheby’s Auctioneers

 Our research began in August 2002 when we were asked to record a picture by Picasso ‘Still Life with Painting’ on the ALR database by two claimants living in England and the USA.   

As proof of ownership, they showed us a page from an exhibition catalogue for an exhibition of Dutch paintings held at the Stedelijk Museum from February to April 1939.  

Although the lender was noted as ‘Private Collection, Amsterdam’, the archives of the Stedelijk Museum held documents that could prove that the lender of the Picasso was their great-aunt,  Dr Meyer-Udewald, then living at an address in Vijzelstraat, Amsterdam.   

Within a week, we traced the Picasso to a private collection in the USA where it had been since 1952 but we had little idea then that we were facing four years of meticulous research in eleven countries to piece together how the Picasso had come to rest where it did.    

In the course of that research, not only did we reconstruct the provenance of this early Picasso but we discovered that, thanks to a Will written in 1925 by a Mr Schlesinger of Hamburg, that the claimants who had approached the ALR were not, after all, entitled to claim the Picasso as a war loss as their great aunt had only been granted a life interest in it.  

On her death, whenever that took place, the Picasso was to revert to Mr Schlesinger’s wife and children.    We discovered Käthe Schlesinger and the three children emigrated from Nazi Germany in 1938, settling in the USA and we located the heirs and advised them about the Picasso.   

Dr Meyer-Udewald, who was also Jewish, had emigrated from Hamburg to Tilburg in the Netherlands in 1936 loaning the Picasso to the Stedelijk Museum three years later.  In 1940, Dr Meyer Udewald moved to Belgium.  Once in Belgium, Dr Meyer-Udewald moved between safe houses in Brussels and Antwerp until she was betrayed and sent to the transit camp for Jewish prisoners at Malines.  

On 20 September 1943, she was deported from Malines to Auschwitz where she died.  Her premature death activated the terms of the 1925 Will of Ernst Schlesinger.  In wartime Brussels, the Picasso passed through the hands of Joseph Albert Dederen, a resident of Brussels and Dr Robyn, who loaned the picture to an exhibition in Knokke, its first public reappearance after the war.  The painting then surfaced at the Bollag Gallery in Zurich from whom it was purchased by the Galerie Benador, Geneva.  In October 1952, the Picasso was acquired in good faith by Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection in Washington DC.   Following the ALR’s reconstruction of the provenance, we negotiated a settlement on behalf of the heirs of Ernst Schlesinger with the legal representative of Duncan V. Phillips.

The Art Loss Register Ltd

A Database for Nazi Looted Art Claims 

Speech given at a Symposium in Amsterdam on 30^th January 2008 hosted by Sotheby’s Auctioneers 

https://web.archive.org/web/20210914022316/https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:iq3s0wJp68AJ:https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/artwork/Sarah%2520Jackson%2520Speech%2520for%2520Sothebys%2520Symposium%2520in%2520Amsterdam.doc+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari

Readings in Nazi looted art: The Rape of Europa by Lynn Nicholas

Published in 1995, Lynn Nicholas' book The Rape of Europa was one of the first to investigate Hitler's massive looting of artworks. Many archives have opened since then and progress with digitization of source documents as well as and museum collections databases following the Washington Declaration have made new material available. 

It is nevertheless interesting to reread Nicholas' book for its insights, especially since the book was published nearly twenty years before the Gurlitt stash was discovered.

Below are a couple of brief extracts.

 "Voss would now channel his purchase funds, which would surpass those spent by Posse, through his own trusted agents, principal among whom was Hildebrand Gurlitt..."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

"Despite their disgust the OSS and MFAA men were human. Craig Smyth, who later had to supervise the house arrest of Hermann Voss, found it difficult to treat so eminent a scholar as a criminal and had him report daily to someone else. Monuments officer Charles Parkhurst, sent to question the widow of Hans Posse, whom he found living on the proceeds of sales of the pathetic contents of two suitcases of family bibelots, described her as a “gentle, elderly person” and broke off his interrogation when she began to weep. In the few answers she did provide it was clear that she was very proud of her husband’s accomplishments. She even showed Parkhurst photographs of Hitler at Posse’s state funeral, but of his actual transactions she clearly knew nothing."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

 "Plaut doubted that Bruno Lohse had really known the extent of Goering’s evildoing and noted that both he and Fräulein Limberger had become despondent when all was revealed. Rousseau and Faison too, after weeks of questioning Miss Limberger, were convinced that despite the fact that she had read the damning daily correspondence from Hofer to Goering, she bore no blame. When they had finished with her, Faison could not bring himself to leave her at the squalid internment camp to which she had been assigned and instead asked her where she would like to go. She named the Munich dealer Walter Bornheim, he of the suitcases full of francs, and a principal supplier to both Linz and Goering. Faison consented, and left her at the military post in Gräfelfing, where Bornheim lived."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

 available on Amazon 

Feliciano's Lost Museum on Galerie Cailleux during the German Occupation of Paris

In his groundbreaking 1995 book, The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art, Hector Feliciano devoted several pages to the activities of the Galerie Cailleux during the German occupation of France.