by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Aug 29, 2024 |
Courtesy of the Allentown Museum
The Allentown Art Museum will highlight the Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony (ca. 1534) in a special exhibition. The 16th-century portrait attributed to Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop will go on display on Thursday, after a restitution claim was settled with the descendants of a German Jewish couple who fled the Nazis before the start of World War II. The painting will be included in a special display of works owned by Jewish families in Germany in the years leading up to the Second World War to illustrate the different trajectories of the artworks throughout the Nazi period. The installation will be on view August 29 through October 20, 2024, and it will include educational information about the Museum’s decision to deaccession the painting.
The Allentown Art Museum recently agreed to relinquish the painting following a claim made by the family of Henry and Hertha Bromberg, who fled Hamburg, Germany in 1938. The painting was purchased from a New York gallery in 1961 and has been on display at the museum ever since. “This work of art entered the market and eventually found its way to the museum only because Henry Bromberg fled persecution from Nazi Germany,” said the museum’s CEO and President, Max Weintraub.
As part of the settlement, the portrait will be sold at the Christie’s Old Masters sale in New York this January. The proceeds will be divided between the museum and the Bromberg heirs, although the details of the arrangement have not been disclosed.
The museum’s lawyer, Nick M. O’Donnell says that research could not establish the precise timing of the Cranach sale by the Brombergs, but “the larger context of the Brombergs’ flight from the Nazis and the sale of his collection along the way was morally compelling.” “That placed the sale among those transactions in the Nazi era that defy categorical description, and thus often elude easy solutions.” he said in The Art Law Report on Monday.
However, the museum says the agreement was reached in the spirit of the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi Confiscated Art, and with applicable guidance from the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), and the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD). The museum says the Pennsylvania Attorney General has approved its decision to deaccession the painting.
“We hope that this voluntary act by the Museum will inform and encourage similar institutions to reach a fair and just solution,” Weintraub says. Christie’s reportedly says it cannot yet give an accurate pre-auction valuation of the work since it is still determining the proper attribution of the painting. Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s Americas, said in a statement to the New York Times that its research was “leading to a tentative conclusion that this was painted by Cranach with assistance from his workshop.” Cranach’s portrait of John Frederick I, Elector of Saxony, sold for $7.7 million in 2018. Another painting, attributed to Cranach and workshop, sold for about $1.1 million in 2009.
O’Donnell says Henry Bromberg’s father, Martin Bromberg, acquired the Cranach in October of 1917 and passed the Cranach to his son, who retained it in his house in Hamburg as late as 1935. The Bromberg’s son, Harald, emigrated to the United States in 1935, followed by their son Edgar one year later, and finally their youngest sons Gerhard and Oswald in 1938.
“While being persecuted and on the run from Nazi Germany, Henry and Hertha Bromberg had to part with their artworks by selling them through various art dealers, including the Cranach,” a lawyer for the Bromberg heirs, Imke Gielen, told the New York Times. O’Donnell says the Brombergs left Germany and arrived in Switzerland in early September of 1938. They eventually departed Europe from Le Havre, France en route to the United States on January 17, 1939.
The family says the Brombergs first settled in New Jersey before moving, several years later, to Pennsylvania (not far from Allentown) to be near one of their sons. “This makes the fair and just solution for the painting in the Allentown Art Museum particularly special,” they stated.
“The Nazis not only confiscated and stole property, but also forced victims to sell items at a fraction of their worth, pay exorbitant flight taxes, or abandon their homes and property when fleeing from the Third Reich,” Amineddoleh & Associates LLC wrote in 2019. “The toll of deprivation on such a massive scale is still felt many decades later.”
In this case, the members of the family “are pleased that another painting from [their] grandparents’ art collection was identified and are satisfied that the Allentown Art Museum carefully and responsibly checked the provenance of the portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony and the circumstances under which Henry and Hertha Bromberg had to part with it during the Nazi period.”
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Aug 19, 2024 |
Image Owned by
Jürgen Karpinski/Grünes Gewölbe, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
A few years ago, we wrote about an infamous theft of jewels from Dresden’s Green Vault in 2019 (you can find the post HERE). During the theft, burglars stole eleven irreplaceable and culturally significant pieces of Baroque jewelry, valued at over 113 million euros. The pieces contained more than 4,300 diamonds. Luckily, the brilliant objects were recovered and they just returned home.
This week, the jewels went back on display in their original locations. However, the legal twist is that the criminals are still subject to court proceedings and so the precious cultural items are still considered court property. The jewels were stolen by six German men, all in their 20s, from the same family.
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Aug 13, 2024 |
Woman Ironing, Pablo Picasso (1904).
Earlier this summer, Leila A. Amineddoleh was quoted in an article in ARTnews about a recently dismissed case in the Southern District of New York. The dispute involved claims that the painting in question, a Picasso work (Woman Ironing) valued at $150 million, was sold under duress during the Nazi Era.
Unfortunately, courts have not had clear guidance on what constitutes a “duress sale” because judges have been punting that question for years. Thus, Nazi-era cases are often decided on technical grounds, like jurisdictional determinations or time limitations. As Leila predicted last January, Bennigson v. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Found., 1013 N.Y. Slip Op. 24164, one of the most recent Nazi-looted art litigations, was dismissed on technical grounds, namely laches. In Bennigson, the Southern District of New York found that the heirs of Karl Adler (a German Jewish man) had waited too long to file a claim because the family had known about the location of the Picasso painting for decades.
The court granted the Guggenheim Motion to Dismiss, primarily based upon the affirmative defense of laches. Judge Andrew Borrok found that laches is still a relevant defense, even after the passage of the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (the HEAR Act). The Act was passed to prevent Nazi-looted art restitution claims from being barred on statute of limitations grounds. The court stated, “not only does laches continue to be an appropriate defense [even after the passage of the HEAR Act]…, it may also be resolved as a matter of law at the motion to dismiss stage where the original owner’s lack of diligence and prejudice to the party currently in possession are apparent.” The court cited a number of recent cases, stating, “The HEAR Act explicitly precludes application of “defense[s] at law relating to the passage of time” but does not interfere with the application of defenses at equity, such as laches (Pub L. No. 114-308, 130 Stat. 1524, § 5[a]; Zuckerman v Metro. Museum of Art, 928 F3d 186, 196 [2d Cir 2019]; Reif v Art Inst. of Chicago, 2023 WL 8167182, at *1 [SDNY Nov. 24, 2023], reconsideration denied sub nom. Timothy Reif, et al., Plaintiffs, v The Art Institute of Chicago, Defendant, 2024 WL 838431 [SDNY Feb. 28, 2024]). The court found that the heirs had demonstrated “over 40 years distinct lack of diligence in not raising any concerns.”
However, while the court dismissed the matter based on laches, the opinion ultimately does address duress as a secondary basis for dismissal and it provides guidance for future disputes. Here, Judge Borrok found that the Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint failed to allege any actionable duress under NY law. Amongst other considerations, the opinion pointed to a letter from the Guggenheim to Eric Adler (the eldest son of the seller, Karl Adler). The museum’s letter explained that it was researching the provenance of the painting as it was preparing a catalogue for a collection within the institution. In response, Eric Adler confirmed that the painting was purchased by his parents in 1916 and sold in 1939, but he did not allude to a duress sale or anything else concerning the disposition of the painting. There was no reference in his letter to demanding the restitution of the painting. This, among other reasons, led the court to find that the sale was not made under duress.
Still, the court acknowledges the horrors of WWII and extensively quotes language from the Amended Complaint that recounts the tragedies that occurred during that period. One particularly heartbreaking paragraph was:
“On September 15, 1935, with the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws (“The Laws for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor”), the Nazis consolidated and extended the existing exclusionary measures against Jews. The Nuremberg Laws deprived all German Jews, including Karl and Rosa, of the rights and privileges of German citizenship, ended any normal life or existence for them and relegated them to a marginalized existence, a pivotal step toward their mass extermination.”
While dismissal of Bennigson was primarily based on laches, the court also took the opportunity to examine the duress claims and it provide guidance for future litigations involving Nazi-era takings and war-era transactions.
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Aug 2, 2024 |
We are thrilled about the launch of our client’s newest television series, “Life in Ancient Times with Darius Arya.” Our client, Darius Arya, has hosted a number of television series, and this newest one launched on PBS on July 31.
Darius is an archaeologist, public historian, author, social media influencer, and TV host based in Rome, Italy. He’s a Fulbright scholar, fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and guest scholar of Getty Conservation Institute. He directs the American Institute for Roman Culture and its online learning platform Ancient Rome Live. Darius has led excavations (Rome, Ostia Antica) and taught university programs in Italy for over 17 years. He works around the globe, with a focus on Rome and the Roman Empire. He directs educational programs, leads lecture series and heritage preservation initiatives, specialized tours, and features in or hosts TV shows for US, Italy, and other European programs.
We are proud to have worked with Darius on negotiating and drafting the agreement for this exciting new PBS series. You can watch episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1UJJvafCqM
by Amineddoleh & Associates LLC | Jul 19, 2024 |
The team at Amineddoleh & Assoc., LLC is proud to announce that our founder has been ranked, for the third consecutive year, in Chambers & Partners High Net Worth for her work in Art and Cultural Property Law.
At the United Nations in January 2020
Chambers writes that Leila is “highly regarded by peers for her in-depth expertise in cultural property restitution cases….She has notable experience handling authenticity-related matters.” Leila was also praised for being “in such great demand in cultural property matters. She is a force; she is constantly working. . . . [Chambers & Partners is] very impressed by her and her work.”
We are extremely pleased to see our founder recognized in the 2024 HNW Guide rankings for the third consecutive year. These rankings reflect our team’s fundamental commitment to providing the highest level of service to our clients. Additionally, the rankings serve as testament to the quality of the services our firm provides for them.
Leila states that she is honored to be in the company of so many other wonderful colleagues who have been recognized alongside her for their expertise in this area.
Congrats to Leila!
View the ranking below:
Amineddoleh & Assoc., LLC is a premier art law practice based in NYC that advises domestic and international collectors, art dealers, galleries, artists, museums and other cultural institutions.
