In Madrid, a French impressionist painting, once seized by the Nazis from a Jewish owner, is becoming the center of legal drama following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to reassess its ownership. The case concerns Camille Pissarro’s artwork, “Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain.” This decision could potentially result in the painting being returned to the heirs of the original owner, or remaining with the esteemed Spanish museum, where it is currently exhibited.
On Monday, the Supreme Court directed that the case be reevaluated under a California statute enacted last year. This law is designed to reinforce Holocaust victims’ and their families’ pursuits to reclaim art they lost during World War II. Consequently, previous decisions from lower courts which had ruled in favor of the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in Madrid were set aside by the justices.
Created in 1897, the oil painting depicts a rain-soaked street scene in Paris and is appraised to be worth tens of millions of dollars. Initially, the owner was Lilly Cassirer Neubauer, a German Jew who relinquished the painting to the Nazis to secure visas for her and her husband to escape Germany.
Over the years, the painting passed through several hands, at one time located in the United States, where it circulated among collectors before being acquired in 1976 by Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza from Lugano, Switzerland. It became part of a collection he later sold to Spain in the 1990s.
David Cassirer, Neubauer’s great-grandson and a resident of California, expressed gratitude to the U.S. Supreme Court, acknowledging its commitment to uphold moral principles. Cassirer embarked on the quest for the painting after his father’s death, Claude Cassirer, who discovered that it was not lost but displayed in a Madrid museum.
A lawyer for the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation affirmed that the foundation would maintain its efforts to verify its ownership of the painting. Thaddeus Stauber, the representative, also noted that the Supreme Court’s order introduces a first-time analysis of the new California law, which may impact the museum’s consistent claims of legitimate ownership.
