Supreme Court Orders Reconsideration of Nazi-Looted Painting Case
The decision revives a Jewish family’s decades-long effort to reclaim a Pissarro painting now held by a Spanish museum.
- The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling, directing the 9th Circuit to reconsider the case under a new California law favoring Holocaust survivors and their heirs.
- The painting, Camille Pissarro’s 1897 work 'Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain,' was forcibly sold by Lilly Cassirer to the Nazis in 1939 in exchange for exit visas to flee Germany.
- The Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid, which acquired the painting in the 1990s, asserts its ownership under Spanish law but acknowledges the painting’s Nazi-looted history.
- The Cassirer family has pursued legal action since 2000 after discovering the painting in the Spanish museum, arguing for its return based on moral and legal grounds.
- The case highlights ongoing international disputes over the restitution of art looted during the Holocaust and the legal complexities surrounding ownership claims.