[MSN] Van Gogh painting appeal to be heard. Hamilton lawyer wants Elizabeth Taylor to return painting originally owned by his great-grandmother.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Van Gogh painting appeal to be heard
Hamilton lawyer wants Elizabeth Taylor to return painting originally owned
by his great-grandmother, JAMES ADAMS writes
JAMES ADAMS 

Along-awaited appeal by a Canadian lawyer and his family over the ownership
of a Vincent van Gogh canvas currently held by actress Elizabeth Taylor is
scheduled to be heard Monday morning in a U.S. Court of Appeal in Los
Angeles.

The painting -- which the 74-year-old Taylor has owned for more than 40
years and which some now estimate to be worth at least $15-million (U.S.) --
was originally purchased 17 years after van Gogh's suicide, in 1907 by
Margarete Mauthner, the great-grandmother of Hamilton lawyer Andrew Orkin. A
Jew living in Berlin, Mauthner was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1939 for
South Africa where she lived until her death, at 84, in 1947.

It's the contention of Orkin, 54, his two siblings and an uncle, the last
three of whom reside in South Africa, that Taylor is in possession of stolen
goods because the 1889 painting was one of numerous Mauthner properties she
was forced to surrender as the Nazis progressively tightened the oppression
of German Jews before the Second World War.

The appeal seeks to overturn a February, 2005, U.S. district court ruling
that said Orkin's ownership claim, filed in a 2004 suit, was invalid because
it fell outside both California statute of limitations law and legislation
that says such claims can "only apply against museums and galleries," not
individuals.
 
 In California, plaintiffs are permitted to sue only three years from the
date a property was "taken, detained or injured." Since Taylor claimed the
disputed work, Vue de l'asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Rémy, after her
father bought it for her from Sotheby's London auction house in 1963, "the
statute of limitations . . . [had] long since expired," the district court
ruling declared.

Monday's appeal hearing is expected to be brief, with the presiding judge
likely to reserve decision for an unspecified time. It's occurring against a
backdrop of heightened awareness of -- and debate about -- issues related to
the restitution of Nazi-era art, at a time when as many 100,000 art objects
owned by European Jews before 1933-45 remain unaccounted for. Just 13 months
ago, an Austrian arbitration court returned five paintings by Gustav Klimt
(1862-1918) to the California-based heirs of their original owner, almost 70
years after their confiscation by the Gestapo. All five have since been sold
privately or at auction for a total of more than $325-million (U.S.).

In appeal documents filed in the summer and fall of 2005, lawyers for Orkin
and his relatives argue that the February, 2005, decision failed to
adequately consider the relevance of the Holocaust Victims Redress Act, the
Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act and the U.S. Holocaust Assets Commission Act
-- all passed in 1998 -- to their case. These federal statutes, they say,
were designed to permit survivors of Nazi persecution and their heirs to go
out and legally recover Nazi-confiscated art, with the understanding that
"persons in wrongful possession of stolen property do not get good title by
having the applicable limitation period run out automatically."

Quoting former Iowa Republican congressman Jim Leach, one of the framers of
the Redress Act, they say, "History does not have a statute of limitations."

Counsel for Orkin further argue that Taylor, before and after buying the van
Gogh for $260,000 (U.S.), didn't do "due diligence" in informing herself
about the "slipshod provenance" of the painting after it left Mauthner's
hands. They say the actress could have consulted three van Gogh catalogues
raisonnés, including ones published in 1933 and 1970, that seem to indicate
that Mauthner held onto the disputed painting into the Nazi era before it
ended up with its penultimate owner, Alfred Wolf.

A wealthy German Jew, Wolf fled the Nazis at an undetermined date for
Switzerland -- a country Orkin's counsel characterize as "a primary
destination for many art works that Jewish collectors . . . had lost as a
result of both Nazi economic coercion and outright seizure." In 1941, Wolf
moved to Argentina and upon his death in the early 1960s, his family sold
his collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings at the
auction attended by Taylor's father.

Unsurprisingly, lawyers for Taylor will argue that the February, 2005,
decision should be upheld by the appeal court. In documents filed earlier on
Taylor's behalf, they assert the Orkin family has provided only
"suspiciously sparse and vague factual allegations," to show that Mauthner
was forced to give up the disputed van Gogh as a result of Nazi coercion.
It's Taylor's contention that Mauthner voluntarily gave up the painting and
Alfred Wolf took it into his collection some time between 1928 and 1933.


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/