Ruling allows suit that seeks return of artworks
The Norton Simon Museum has held the paintings for decades.
The Norton Simon Museum was dealt another legal setback Thursday in its bid to hold on to prized 16th century paintings of Adam and Eve that were looted by the Nazis during World War II and have hung in its galleries in Pasadena since the 1970s.
In a ruling in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Judge John Walter denied the museum’s motion to dismiss Marei Von Saher’s lawsuit that seeks the return of the paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Painted on a pair of wooden panels around 1530, they depict a nude Adam and Eve holding forbidden fruit.
The Nazis confiscated the paintings after Von Saher’s father-in-law, a prominent Dutch-Jewish art dealer, fled Amsterdam with his family during the German blitzkrieg in Holland in 1940. (Jacques Goudstikker died in an accidental fall aboard the ship on which they fled the Nazis.)
Walter had tossed out Von Saher’s lawsuit twice before during the long-running legal fight that began in 2007, only to be reversed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, keeping her case alive.
This time Walter sided with Von Saher. He ended his 11-page ruling by noting that the Connecticut resident, “whose family suffered terrible atrocities at the hands of the Nazis, will now have an opportunity to pursue the merits of her claims, and Norton Simon will have an opportunity to pursue any and all defenses to those claims.”
Walter’s ruling suggests that the case will now focus on evidence of the paintings’ almost incredible journey through 20th century history, rather than on the preliminary legal issue of whether the statute of limitations and constitutional conflicts barred Von Saher from pursuing her claim.
The Norton Simon’s bid to get Walter to dismiss the case for a third time hinged on the statute of limitations.
The museum issued a statement Thursday affirming that it “remains confident that it holds complete and proper title to Adam and Eve, and will continue to pursue, consistent with its fiduciary duties, all appropriate legal options.” Art museums’ duties include safeguarding their collections so that they remain available to the public.
Von Saher’s attorney, Lawrence Kaye, said he hoped Thursday’s ruling might prompt the museum to consider an out-of-court settlement.
“It’s a very strong statement that echoes the strong statement of the 9th Circuit that Mrs. Von Saher is entitled to her day in court and entitled to a resolution on [her claim’s] merits,” he said.
The next step, Kaye said, is for the museum to make a formal answer within 14 days to an amended complaint Von Saher filed in 2011.