Nazi-Looted Art Restitutions: From Neue Galerie to Thyssen-Bornemisza

Multiple restitution cases involving Nazi-looted art have emerged globally. At the Neue Galerie in New York, co-founder Ronald S. Lauder returned and repurchased a work from the Hess family, then established an expert commission to research the provenance of his collection, posting findings online. Two Flemish Old Master paintings were returned to the Max Stern estate at the Canadian Embassy in Berlin. Stern, a Jewish art dealer forced to liquidate his gallery and flee Nazi Germany, is represented by a foundation that has recovered 15 works of about 400 sought. The heirs of Alfred Flechtheim, another persecuted dealer, filed a lawsuit in New York against Bavaria and its state museums for eight paintings by Max Beckmann, Juan Gris, and Paul Klee valued at $20 million, allegedly seized in 1933. At the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Spain, a 1897 Camille Pissarro painting, Rue St. Honoré, après-midi, êffet de pluie, is contested between the museum and heirs of Lilly Cassirer, who sold it before fleeing Germany; it is now worth $30 million.