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| Camille Pissarro: Transatlantic struggle for painting stolen by Nazis |
Hidden inside, they found a stack
of artworks, including a painting by Impressionist artist Camille Pissarro,
showing a shepherdess bathed in warm light greeting her flock.
The painting had been hidden there by a Jewish couple, Raoul and Yvonne Meyer, the heirs of the famous French department
store Galeries Lafayette. It was 1941, and France had already been under German
control for a year. The Pissarro canvas disappeared into Nazi custody.
A 'model' rotation agreement
No one disputes this story. But the painting
itself found hanging in an Oklahoma art gallery in 2012, is now the subject of
an unusual custody agreement, and a bitter transatlantic dispute over
restitution rights in cases of stolen Nazi art.
The painting, La Bergère Rentrant
des Moutons (Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep), was traced to the US by
the Meyers' adopted daughter, Léone-Noëlle, now in her 80s.
It had been gifted to the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones Jr Museum in 2000 by an American family who had bought it in good faith. Mrs. Meyer wanted to reclaim it and bring it back to France.
The agreement she reached with the museum
in 2016 stated that both parties would share possession of the painting; that
it could not be sold, exchanged, or donated without the permission of both
sides; and, crucially, that the picture would be rotated between Oklahoma
museum and a French art gallery every three years.
It was, in the eyes of the university's
Foundation, "a model for how to fairly and justly settle modern-day art
restitution cases", and rightly "heralded as a first of its
kind".
The question of how to weigh the rights of
current owners against those of the original pre-Nazi owners has never been
fully settled.
At heart is the legal concept of "good faith": whether those who bought an artwork in good faith from a legitimate source should have to give it up, and whether they should be compensated if they do. Different courts and different countries have often applied different rules.
Solution 'imposed by Oklahoma'
Mrs. Meyer's lawyer, Ron Soffer, says she
was "forced" to sign the agreement with Oklahoma University because
the statute of limitations for claiming the painting had expired.
"Because they were not willing to restitute it, Mrs. Meyer found herself with a substantial risk of not seeing the painting ever return to France," he told me. "It was a solution imposed by Oklahoma. It goes from Oklahoma to a French museum and then back to Oklahoma. Mrs. Meyer does not even have the ability to touch it."
Stranger still, he says, is a clause in the
agreement that requires Mrs. Meyer to gift the painting to a "mutually
agreed upon French art institution" before her death. If she does not, the
painting "shall be permanently transferred… to the US Art in Embassies
Program".
Challenging the painting's return to the US
Since 2017, the painting has been hanging
in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris on its first rotation in France. But Mrs. Meyer is
having trouble gifting the work to the museum, the home of French Impressionist
art, because of the requirement to ship it back and forth to the US every three
years.
In a statement, the Musée d'Orsay expressed
the "difficulties" and "cost" involved in the project,
citing the need for "regular transport of the work between Paris and The University of Oklahoma". It had no comment on any legal action.
The painting is due to leave for its
three-year rotation in the US at the end of July.
Mrs. Meyer, now 81, has asked the French
courts to intervene to stop the Pissarro from leaving. They're due to give
their first verdict on the case next month.
Daily fine for 'violating agreement'
In response, the district court in Oklahoma
has ruled Mrs. Meyer in contempt, with a stinging judgment that she "has
largely forfeited whatever sympathy she might otherwise have been entitled
to", having "entered into a rigorously negotiated settlement
agreement… then violated that settlement agreement when it no longer suited her
purposes."
The US court has imposed a daily fine on
Mrs. Meyer - said by her lawyer to be $2,500 (£1,800) a day, in addition to
legal fees - for as long as she continues the case in France.
"It is disappointing that she is
actively working to renege on the agreement lauded by the international art
world," said the Oklahoma University Foundation.
The American Alliance of Museums and the
Association of Art Museum Directors have both warned that "parties to
future disputes may be reluctant to enter into agreements", if the original settlement, in this case, is not upheld. Nazi-era claims should be
resolved in an "equitable, appropriate, and mutually agreeable
manner", they say.
An 'unfavorable' claims process
Mrs. Meyer's lawyer, Ron Soffer, sees it
differently.
"The important question is to ask why
Oklahoma has been fighting for the past decade not to restitute a painting that
they do not contest is of dubious origin, that they do not contest was taken
from Mrs. Meyer's adopted father by the Nazis?" he said.
Restitution expert Marc Masurovsky says one major problem facing claimants like Ms. Meyer is the lack of international
agreement or of government support.
"The claims process has been really
unfavorable to claimants from the very beginning," he says, "and
apart from those who are extremely well-equipped financially, politically, and
legally, many claimants decided not to push for the return of their property
because it was a real headache."
Regulations like France's 1945 decree on
Nazi plunder have been invoked differently by courts on different sides of the
Atlantic, he says.
"If we'd had more public sector involvement in this," he told me, "we may have been able to eliminate these situations where you have to go before a judge who knows almost nothing about the Second World War, and certainly nothing about plunder and the way Jews were exploited".
'A new approach to stolen art
David Zivie, who heads the Research and
Restitution Mission at France's culture ministry, says there was a big effort
just after the war to find the owners of artworks brought back to France from
Germany: 45,000 items were returned to their original owners at the time.
But from the 1950s to the 1990s many countries,
including France, did not see restitution or research of artworks as a priority.
"When it was an artwork from the national collection, the minister and the
museums were really reluctant," he told the BBC.
But attitudes are changing. France last month
agreed to return a painting by Klimt from its national collection
to the heirs of its original owner in Austria.
"There is a strong political will to
do the research and listen to the families, and try to find just and fair
solutions," said Mr. Zivie. "We can say that it's a new
approach."
Mrs. Meyer inherited the painting from her
adoptive parents after losing her biological family to the Holocaust.
"Seeing this painting get back to France is very, very important to
her," Ron Soffer explained.
"We frankly do not understand how Oklahoma
could possibly justify to themselves and to their students the notion of
getting an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor sanctioned in order not to yield a the painting that they know belongs here."
BBC News
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