Paris Court Orders Sotheby’s to Return Nazi-Looted Pissarro Painting to Jewish Heirs

A Paris court has ordered the restitution of a painting by Camille Pissarro, allegedly seized by the Nazis during World War II, to the descendants of Jewish banker and art collector Salomon Flavian, reports Le Figaro. A group of his heirs sued Sotheby’s in Paris in September, saying they were improperly left out of an agreement struck with other members of their family

The case concerns the French Impressionist’s 1902 canvas Darse de pêche et bassin Duquesne, Dieppe, après-midi ensoleillée (Fishing dock and Duquesne basin, Dieppe, sunny afternoon), showing the port city in western France.

Sotheby’s London sold the painting in 2024 for £1.2 million ($1.5 million at the time). The auctioneer indicated that the work was being offered “pursuant to a settlement between the current owner and heirs of Salomon Flavian,” whose collection the Nazis seized in Paris in 1941. The house’s lawyers maintained in court that the heirs’ consent was gained through Mondex Corporation, which specializes in the recovery of art and other assets looted during World War II, reported the Art Newspaper. But seven plaintiffs maintained in court in September that only two relatives, Gilles and Nicholas Flavian, had signed the agreement and that the rest had not been consulted, per the newspaper.

In its Thursday decision, the court nullified all sales since the initial seizure of the painting, and ordered the return of the work. It concluded that the Flavian family established that Salomon had owned the painting, that it had been confiscated by the Germans, and that he had taken steps to recover his assets after the war. The court ordered Sotheby’s to inform the family of the identity of the buyer in the 2024 sale, or be fined €1,000 ($1,123) per day thereafter, reports Le Figaro, noting that the judgment applies immediately, even in the event of an appeal.

In an email to ARTnews, Mondex Corporation consultant James Palmer said that an appeal will be filed “forthwith.” Palmer argued that the archives of dealer Paul Rosenberg and the 1939 Pissarro catalogue raisonné “both clearly identify [British artist and collector] Edward Le Bas as the owner of the painting from 1939 to the early 1950s.” This means the painting could not have been seized from Flavian during the 1940s, he says.

“Of great importance is the fact that France currently lacks a formal restitution framework, which disadvantages both the state and claimants,” he added, contrasting France with existing adjudication bodies in the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, which, he said, “operate on a crucial general principle: that the benefit of the doubt is presumed in the claimant’s favor unless there is evidence to the contrary.”

Regarding Le Bas’s ownership, he continued, “These crucial facts were not commented upon by the court in its decision and can therefore be presumed to have been given no significant consideration, which is a flaw in the judicial assessment of the case. We are confident that when the vast amount of complex provenance research evidence is properly understood and considered that the court of appeal will reach a different conclusion.”