A US court ruled in favor of the Thyssen Museum this Tuesday, ruling that a painting Camille Pissarro Although it was stolen from its original owners by the Nazis in Germany in 1939, part of its collection belongs to the institution.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals He justified the decision by stating that it was preferable to apply Spanish law to California law to determine the owner of the work ‘Rue Saint-Honoré, après midi, effet de pluie’, and therefore the work would remain the property of Thyssen-Bornemisza. To collect.
After hearing the California court’s decision, Thyssen sources told EFE that the penalty was “positive“because he “agrees with the museum in the arguments they have been making since the beginning of this whole process.”
The decision states that “enforcement of California law would cause significant harm.” Interests of the Spanish Government“Enforcement of Spanish law would cause only relatively minimal harm to the interests of the Government of California.”
“Therefore, under California’s choice of law test, we decided to apply Spanish law to determine the owner of the painting. And pursuant to Section 1955 of the Code Civil Law The court stated that the Spanish Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection obtained compulsory ownership of the painting.
The sentence puts an end Legal dispute that began in 2005 When American citizen Claude Cassirer filed a lawsuit against the Spanish State to demand the return of a Pissarro painting that belonged to his family.
As stated in the initial lawsuit Cassirer filed in California, his grandmother Lilly Cassirer Neubauer, He was “forced to hand over Pissarro to an official expert appointed by the Nazis” and received a symbolic sum for Pissarro’s artwork in 1897.
After the war, Lilly Cassirer took legal possession of the painting, and in 1958 the German federal government at the time recognized it as its legal owner and gave it to her. 120,000 marks as compensation.
The painting changed hands several times until 1976, when Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, purchased the work in New York. Later, in 1993, the Spanish State Thyssen-Bornemisza CollectionFor 263 million euros, consisting of 775 works, including those by Pissarro.