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A Federal Court of Appeal upheld the decision of a lower court that two contested oil paintings of the 16th century by Lucas Cranach the Elder will not be returned to the Heir to the legendary Dutch Jewish merchant Jacques Goudstikker, but will remain in the United States. The July 30 ruling appears to put an end to an 11-year-old court battle over art looted by the Nazis, and means that they will remain in California at the Norton Simon Museum, in view of the public.
The recent decision confirms a ruling in 2016, which found that a US court does not have the power to overturn a decision made by the Dutch government, which had sold the paintings in 1966. Marei von Saher was in a long legal battle with the museum in Pasadena to retrieve the two paintings, which the Nazis ripped from the possessions of Goudstikker, his father-in-law, a prominent old-time merchant from Amsterdam with a collection of over 1200 works.
Cranach, the German Renaissance painter, completed the works duo around 1530. During the invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, Goudstikker tried to escape by boat, but died in an accidental fall; Cranach's paintings were then sold for a fraction of their value to Hermann Göring, one of the most powerful Nazis under Hitler, against the will of Goudstikker's widow
. After the war, Allied forces gave Hundreds of works seized by Göring to the Dutch government, which later sold the Cranach to a former Russian prince, George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff. In 1971, he sold them to the billionaire Norton Simon industrialist. According to the ninth appellate court of the US circuit, the Netherlands had a good title under Dutch law when officials originally sold the paintings in the 1960s to Stroganoff-Sherbatoff, and the Goudstikker family did not dispute the sale at the time. The Dutch government acted with authority to forward the paintings after von Saher's predecessors failed to file a claim, said Judge
Eric Simon, the grandson of Norton Simon and the only family member of the family. Museum. the heir of the Jewish family. He was expelled from the council in May – largely, he said, because of his sympathies for the plaintiff, according to Pasadena Star News . artnet News contacted the Norton Simon Museum about the court's decision, but received no response at the time of publication.
In the decision, Judge Margaret McKeown stated that von Saher's cause of action would invalidate the restitution efforts, which set a time limit of 1951 for the claims. In a concurring opinion, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote a pointed statement, according to Courthouse News : "Here we are in 2018, more than a decade after the date on which von Saher filed his Federal action, did not need to have reached, to finally decide that the Cranachs, who hanged in the Norton Simon Museum for nearly 50 years, can stay there. "
In 2006, the Dutch government restored 202 paintings to von Saher.The works were sold at auction the following year for a profit of $ 10 million.The artnet News has contacted the Von Saher's lawyer about the court's decision, but did not receive an answer at the time of publication.
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