[MSN] An elderly German baroness living in Providence must relinquish a painting sold under duress by a Jewish art dealer in Nazi Germany 70 years ago, a federal judge ruled this week.

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Judge orders Providence woman to relinquish painting

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, December 29, 2007

By David Scharfenberg

Journal Staff Writer

Maria-Louise Bissonnette, of Providence, must relinquish this painting -
which was ordered sold by the Nazis:
http://www.projo.com/news/content/NAZI_PAINTING_12-29-07_IE8E35L_v9.27052f5.
html# 

AP / Concordia University

An elderly German baroness living in Providence must relinquish a painting
sold under duress by a Jewish art dealer in Nazi Germany 70 years ago, a
federal judge ruled this week.

U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi ordered Maria-Louise Bissonnette, 84, to
return Girl from the Sabiner Mountains to the estate of Max Stern, a
well-known collector and dealer who died in 1987 after a lengthy postwar
career in Canada.

The oil painting is the work of Franz Xaver Winterhalter, a 19th-century
German painter and lithographer known for his portraits of royalty.

Thomas R. Kline, a lawyer for the estate, said the decision provided a
measure of vindication for Stern, who resisted Nazi efforts to sell off his
art collection for nearly two years before fleeing Germany.

"It vindicates his actions in standing up to the Nazis, trying to hold on to
his business, his collections . and making efforts after the war to recover
his collection," Kline said.

Bissonnette, who lives in a downtown high-rise, declined an interview
request yesterday. And her lawyers did not return calls for comment.

The case is the latest in a string of emotionally charged attempts by
individuals, institutions and governments to wrest back stolen, forcibly
sold or smuggled artwork.

Last year, the Connecticut heirs of prominent Jewish Dutch art dealer
Jacques Goudstikker recovered 202 paintings seized by the Nazis after the
invasion of Amsterdam.

And the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
New York made headlines last year when they agreed to return dozens of
disputed antiquities to Italy.

The Stern case dates to 1934, when the dealer inherited a Dusseldorf art
gallery from his father.

At the time, the Nazis were enacting and beginning to enforce strict laws
that prohibited Jews from owning businesses.

And in 1935, the regime's Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts ordered Stern to
sell his collection.

Two years later, after Stern's appeals failed, the Lempertz auction house in
Cologne, Germany, sold his works below market value.

Stern joined his sister in London just before World War II broke out, and
later moved to Canada, where he would head the Dominion Gallery in Montreal
for years.

Stern made efforts through the Canadian and British governments to recover
his lost paintings. And in 1964, he won partial damages from a restitution
court in Germany.

When he died, he left his estate to Concordia and McGill universities in
Montreal and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in Israel.

Girl from the Sabiner Mountains surfaced in January 2005 when Bissonnette
attempted to auction it through Cranston-based Estates Unlimited.

Bissonnette's stepfather Karl Wilharm, a physician and high-ranking member
of the Nazi party, according to the Stern estate, had purchased the painting
in the forced auction of 1937.

And Bissonnette inherited the painting from her mother's estate in 1991,
according to court documents.

When she attempted to sell it, the Stern estate made a claim for restitution
with the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, a wing of the State of New
York's banking department.

The office sent a demand letter in February 2005 seeking return of the
painting. Bissonnette refused, kicking off a year of fruitless negotiations
over a painting that has been valued at $67,000 to $93,000.

Bissonnette ultimately shipped the painting to Germany and sued the Stern
estate in the German courts in a bid to establish ownership.

The Stern estate subsequently filed a suit of its own in Rhode Island,
paving the way for this week's decision.

Kline, the lawyer for the estate, said the American court ruling will
prevail since it was issued prior to any German ruling.

The decision was significant, he added, because it equated a forced sale
with theft - buttressing future claims by any victims of Nazi rule pushed to
auction off their wares.

"So much of the stealing was done through coercion and duress, as opposed to
the classic gun to the head," he said.

Kline said the painting, which is in need of restoration, may ultimately
join a traveling Stern exhibition.

dscharfe at projo.com

http://www.projo.com/