The Cassirer family, the first owners of the impressionist painting on Rue Saint-Honoré, in the afternoon. “Rain Effect,” 1897 by Camille Pissarro, who was forced to undercut this painting in 1939 to obtain a visa and leave Nazi Germany at the start of World War II, appeals the ruling of the Central District of California Court of Appeals An appeal that concluded on Tuesday that the Thyssen Museum is the rightful owner of the work, as confirmed by EL PAÍS through the law firm B. Cremades & Asociados. This law firm was part of a long legal battle (which began in 2005) against the Spanish Museum on behalf of the Association of Jewish Communities of Spain and the Jewish Community of Madrid.
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“The family has already publicly stated that they will continue to appeal, so there is still much work to be done and years of fighting ahead,” Bernardo Cremades Jr. of the law firm said in a statement to Europa Press. Already in 2022, in an interview with this newspaper, David Cassirer seemed not to be afraid of a possible delay in this legal war. “We’ve been doing this for 23 years; “Waiting a little longer won’t be so bad,” he then explained. Now the original owners must appeal to the full California court for reconsideration and from there they would have the option of refiling their appeal to the Washington Supreme Court, which could agree to reconsider the matter or leave it alone. The chances that this body will allow the case to be processed a second time, even though it has already clearly stated its criteria the first time, are slim.
The case went to the Supreme Court of the United States in April 2022, where Cassirer won a partial victory, as that court opened the door to a possible return that seemed finally closed this Tuesday. The Californian judges consider that Spanish law applies and that the large deal, worth around 28 million euros, therefore belongs to Thyssen, where it ended up in 1993 after the takeover of Baron Thyssen. Therefore it is a painting that belongs to the Spanish state.
“An appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States again would seem a little absurd,” said Evelio Acevedo, CEO of Thyssen. “Or at least with little chance of success,” he adds. The same opinion deserves that the Cassirer family appeal to the court, which has just ruled in favor of the museum, considering that Spanish law should apply in this case. “Applying Spanish law, the court ruled that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection had acquired prescriptive ownership of the painting in accordance with Article 1955 of the Spanish Civil Code. Therefore, the panel confirmed the district court’s decision to issue judgment in favor of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection,” explains the wording of the judgment.
Bernardo Cremades believes that “the ruling ignores the fact that it protects someone – or a state, what is worse – from keeping art stolen or looted by the Nazis, contrary to all international conventions.” This law firm points out highlighted the concurring opinion of Judge Consuelo Callahan, who wrote that she agreed with the ruling but that it bothered her. “Spain, having reaffirmed its commitment to the Washington Principles on Nazi-confiscated art by signing the Theresienstadt Declaration on Holocaust-era property and related issues, should have voluntarily renounced the painting,” he said in his statement dissenting opinion. “Our decision is limited by the district court's factual findings and applicable law, but I wish it were different,” he added.
“We are not going to go into personal opinions, and this lady is more than a vote, it seems to me that she is expressing a personal opinion,” assesses Callahan, the Thyssen manager. Acevedo defends that the museum respects Washington's policy statement on art confiscated by the Nazis, since in 1958 Lilly Cassirer Neubauer reached an agreement with the German government, dealer Jakob Scheidwimmer and D. Julius Sulzbacher in which he accepted compensation of 120,000 DM Federal Government to put an end to the claims between the parties. “Following these principles, the ideal is to find just solutions that take into account the injured party but also the rights of the person who acquired these assets in an absolutely legal way and of course in good faith,” he says of the Baron's purchase made in the fifties.
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