Nazi-looted art claimed by Montreal estate spirited out of U.S.
Two Montreal universities and the estate of a Montreal art collector are involved in an international legal dispute in an attempt to reclaim Nazi-looted art.
On the other side of the dispute is anelderly German baroness who has removeda disputed painting, called Girl from Sabine Mountains, from her U.S. home to Germany.
The painting was once part of the collection of Max Stern, who fled Germany in 1937 after being forced by the Nazis to sell his inventory.
Stern, who became a prominent art collector and dealer in Montreal, died in 1987, leaving his estate to a foundation that benefits Concordia and McGill universities in Montreal and Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
Concordia University announced in March 2005 that it had found some of the 250 works from Stern's collection that had gone missing and was spearheading an effort to get the works returned.
The university, working with Stern's estate, started negotiations to recover some of the pieces, including Girl from Sabine Mountains, painted by Franz X. Winterhalter and valued at about $150,000 US.
Painting inherited from Nazi official
Maria-Louise Bissonnette, 82, a resident of Providence, R.I., had inherited thepainting from her late stepfather, Dr. Karl Wilharm, a high-ranking Nazi official.
She has said she is willing to hand over the painting, but that Stern was fully paid for the artwork, and she wants to be compensated.
"There's no question it was a forced sale, and it has never been her intention to keep that work of art from the Max Stern estate," said Bissonnette's Boston lawyer, John Weltman, in an interview with the Boston Globe.
"She simply wants a court to determine to whom the work belongs, and if she has to return it, the issue is how much she's entitled to be paid."
Stern's Montreal estate has hired lawyers to fight for the return of the painting, which they say Stern sold under duress.
He received none of the sale's proceeds when he was forced out of Germany in 1937, they said.
The painting was locatedin January 2005 at a Rhode Island auction house when the Stern estate and the universities were making an international search for works that originally belonged to Stern.
They havebeen working with the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, a New York state agency that recovers lost or looted art. Agency officialsbegan negotiations with Bissonnette, but the talks dragged on unsuccessfully for more than a year.
Heir acted in 'bad faith'
In April officials at the Holocaust Claims Processing Office were notified that Bissonnette had taken the painting to Germany and had asked a Cologne court to declare her its rightful owner.
U.S. courts usually rule that Nazi-looted art must be returned to its original owner and Bissonnette may have taken the painting to Germany in search of an overseas court sympathetic to her position.
The Holocaust Claims Processing Office has termed the move "bad faith" and the Stern estate has sued both Bissonnette and the auction house.
"In 20 years of doing this, I have never seen somebody with the nerve or chutzpah or audacity, after over a year of good-faith negotiations, to respond to the situation by taking the painting physically out of the country," said Willi Korte, a specialist in locating Nazi-looted art who is working with the Stern estate.
Concordia University meanwhile isintensifying efforts to recover all of Stern's stolen art.
More than 40 works have been located and negotiations are under way on their recovery, the university said in a statement.
Concordia art historian Clarence Epstein saidhe believed most of the owners were notknowingly holding Nazi-looted art.
"I have to give them the benefit of the doubt," he said. "This whole process is about educating people regarding a bygone era and place that the years have erased."