Judge orders return of Nazi-looted Modigliani painting

A New York judge has ordered that a painting by Amedeo Modigliani be returned to the heirs of a Jewish art dealer. The judge found that the painting was taken during the Nazi occupation of France and was never legally transferred.

New York Supreme Court Justice Joel M. Cohen ruled on Friday that the estate of Oscar Stettiner is entitled to the painting Seated Man With a Cane, according to court records obtained by Urgent Matter. The decision was against defendants David Nahmad and International Art Center, the company that purchased the work at auction in 1996.

The lawsuit, first filed in New York in 2014, centers on whether the painting was unlawfully seized from Stettiner during World War II and later sold without his consent. His grandson, Philippe Maestracci, has sought its return.

Cohen wrote that the estate had established Stettiner “owned or at a minimum had a superior right of possession of the painting prior to its unlawful seizure” and that “he never voluntarily relinquished it.”

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Court Documents: Modigliani Restitution Case Against Nahmad

Records from New York Supreme Court

Urgent MatterAdam Schrader

The judge said the record showed “a straightforward and persuasive chain of ownership.” The painting went from Stettiner’s possession to being seized by the Nazis and sold in 1944 to Jean Van der Klip.

According to the decision, it passed to Van der Klip’s heirs, who consigned it for sale at Christie’s in London in 1996, where Nahmad and his co-defendants acquired it.

Stettiner, a Jewish art dealer living in Paris, owned the painting before the war and lent it to the Venice Biennale in 1930. Cohen cited this as evidence of his ownership. When Nazi forces advanced, Stettiner fled Paris in 1939, leaving his art collection, including the Modigliani, behind.

After the war, Stettiner initiated proceedings in France to recover the work. Cohen relied partly on a 1946 French court decision ordering the painting returned to Stettiner. However, it could not be recovered then because it had already been sold.

In those postwar proceedings, Van der Klip said the painting had passed through another seller and was resold later in 1944, including to an American officer, according to the decision.

Cohen wrote that the claim the painting had been resold to an American officer appeared to be a feint. He pointed to evidence that Van der Klip’s heirs were the ones who later consigned the painting for sale at Christie’s in 1996. He also noted no evidence showed the painting was publicly shown or offered for sale between the 1944 auction and the 1996 sale.

The judge also said the provenance information for the 1996 sale was “erroneous and misleading.” The Christie’s catalog claimed the painting was bought at an anonymous Paris sale during the war by a collector named John Livengood and later descended to the sellers.

Cohen wrote the claim was incorrect, noting Livengood was not a wartime buyer but a co-consignor in the 1996 Christie’s sale and was not born until 1952. He also said the catalog incorrectly listed Roger Dutilleul, a Paris-based collector, as a prior owner and misidentified the painting’s exhibition history at the 1930 Venice Biennale.

Nahmad also questioned whether the painting at issue was the same one Stettiner had owned. He argued that the painting described in the postwar French proceedings might have been a different Modigliani, and that the description of the work sold in 1944 did not match the painting he bought.

The court rejected these arguments and found that the painting at issue was the same one mentioned in the postwar proceedings. Cohen said the defense relied on “unsupported speculation of ‘possibilities,’” which was insufficient to defeat summary judgment.

Cohen also rejected the defendants’ argument that the claim was made too late, finding that the Stettiner family had been misled for decades about the painting's whereabouts.

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