The heirs to a Jewish art dealer persecuted by the Nazis are suing the Metropolitan Museum of Art over ownership of a painting by Camille Pissarro that was bequeathed to the museum by its former chairman, Douglas Dillon, more than two decades ago.
The suit, filed in a French court, argues that the dealer, Max Julius Braunthal, was forced to sell the Pissarro under duress in 1941, during Germany’s occupation of France. The Met has argued that the price Braunthal received for the work, “Haystacks, Morning, Éragny” (1899), an idyllic scene of the French countryside, represented the fair market value at the time.
The plaintiffs, who are seven heirs of Braunthal, assert in court papers that they only brought suit after five years of unsuccessful efforts to reclaim the painting from the museum. They say the discussion of price is irrelevant because, under French law, all sales of art made under the Nazis by Jews and others in extreme distress are viewed as null and void.
The lawsuit says that Braunthal and his wife, Charlotte, were destitute when he sold “Haystacks” for 100,000 francs to the Durand-Ruel gallery. The gallery was known for dealing in works by Pissarro and other Impressionists.
“Faced with the Met’s clear refusal to return the disputed work,” the court papers say, “its delaying tactics and manifestly abusive attitude, despite the numerous pieces of evidence provided by Max Braunthal’s heirs in support of their claim, the latter had no choice but to initiate the present proceedings.”
Art law experts said that the Met would not be bound by a French court ruling unless the heirs successfully secured a subsequent U.S. court decision that enforced a foreign judgment. The Met would also have the option of appealing any ruling through the French legal system and ultimately, perhaps, before a separate tribunal that reviews decisions made by courts in the European Union.
Similar issues regarding restitution decisions made by courts outside the United States arose in a longstanding legal battle between the Italian government and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles over ownership of a statue known as the “Getty Bronze” or “Victorious Youth.” The Getty has argued that it properly acquired the statue and that it had been found in international waters. But Italy’s highest court ruled against the Getty in 2018, finding that the bronze was looted cultural property. In 2024, the broader European court denied the museum’s appeal. But the dispute remains unresolved. The Italian government has not filed an enforcement action in the United States.
In a statement, the Met said: “After undertaking a comprehensive and rigorous study of Max Braunthal’s sale of the painting to Pissarro’s dealer, Durand-Ruel, we believe the transaction was legitimate and that the work should remain in The Met’s collection.”
The museum also defended its handling of Nazi-era art claims in general, saying it considers all such claims “thoroughly and responsibly” and “has a well-documented history of restituting works of art when evidence demonstrates that they were unlawfully appropriated during the Nazi era.”
Pissarro’s artistic skills drew praise from his contemporaries, including Cézanne and Renoir. Works by the painter have sold for prices ranging from $4 million to $32 million over the past two decades, according to auction records.
Braunthal, the dealer who sold the work in 1941, was born in Germany in 1878 but fled to France with some of his property, including the Pissarro, to escape rising antisemitism. After Hitler and the Nazis seized power in 1933, his assets back home were confiscated.
By February 1941, after the Germans had conquered France and set up the puppet state known as the Vichy regime, Braunthal was forced to sell the few artworks he had retained in Paris at what the heirs say were clearly unjust prices. The lawsuit outlines the many tactics, both brutish and bureaucratic, that Nazi occupiers and collaborators in France used to steal belongings from Jews or force them to sell their valuables for a pittance.
Braunthal and his wife were among 13,000 Jews in and around Paris who were forcibly rounded up by the French police in July 1942 and interned under inhumane conditions in a Parisian velodrome. While there, Nazi officials confiscated the rest of Braunthal’s art collection on the pretext that the works belonged to Germany’s national heritage. Braunthal survived the occupation but died of cancer in 1946.
The heirs say one indication that the sale was “forced” and should be annulled is that the Durand-Ruel gallery sold the Pissarro it had bought from Braunthal within two weeks to a German collector named Wolfgang Krueger, for 140,000 francs, a 40 percent profit.
The lead attorney for the heirs, Melina Wolman, said her clients want the Paris civil court where the suit was filed on Jan. 21 to invalidate the wartime sale and grant them title to the Pissarro. French lawmakers and judges have adopted an expansive definition of what constitutes a Nazi-era “forced sale” in the eight decades since the Germans were defeated in World War II. The Met has three to six months to respond to the lawsuit, Wolman said.
Krueger held onto the Pissarro he had bought from the gallery until 1958. It was sold and resold twice before it ended up at the Knoedler Gallery in New York, where in 1959 it was purchased by Dillon, a Wall Street financier. He would go on to serve the Met museum in a number of capacities, including as the chairman of the Met board for six years ending in 1983.
Nicholas O’Donnell, a lawyer who handles many restitution cases, said that although a French ruling would not be the final word in the case, such a judgment could help the plaintiffs were they to bring suit in the United States.
“On the merits,” he said, “if a French court nullifies the 1941 sale, the heirs would likely argue to a New York court that any subsequent title was incurably defective, and that it would revert to the victim’s heirs. That would be a strong argument standing alone.”
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