Legal battle between the Thyssen-Bornemisza and a Jewish family over a well-known Pissarro painting has ended

Camille Pissarro’s painting, Rue Saint-Honoré, dans l’après-midi. Effet de pluie, made in 1897 was the subject of a long and controversial legal battle.

The painting had been seized, on the eve of World War II, from its owners by the Nazis. A few days ago, on August 17, an appeals court in Pasadena upheld a district court’s decision to keep the painting in question in the collection of the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the museum venue that now owns the work.

As to whether the latter was seized, there is no doubt: the Nazis took it from a Jewish woman, Lilly Cassirer, in 1939 as an exchange to obtain safe passage out of Germany for her family. In about 1950, believing that the painting could no longer be recovered, the family accepted financial compensation from the Allied Forces Court. Unbeknownst to the family, the painting was probably purchased in 1976 at the Hahn Gallery in New York by the well-known collector Hans-Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, and later his collection was transferred to a state museum in Spain.

In 2000 it happens, however, that Lilly’s nephew saw that painting in the museum and went to U.S. federal court to get it back. Court cases ensued that, after the grandson’s death, involved other heirs in the family.

In 2019, the matter went forward, as they claimed that experts at the museum’s headquarters had completely misexamined the painting to determine its true provenance, but a judge blocked these allegations, pointing out that the museum’s studies did not constitute"willful blindness."

Now the case has now ended, as the Court of Appeals has declared that "the Thyssen-Bornemisza is the owner of the painting. The painting will remain visible to the public at the museum venue, as it has been since 1992."

The family’s heirs did not comment on the decision.

Image: Camille Pissarro, Rue Saint-Honoré, dans l’après-midi. Effet de pluie (1897; oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm; Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza)

Legal battle between the Thyssen-Bornemisza and a Jewish family over a well-known Pissarro painting has ended

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