MFAH stands by claim to art
Museum says it is rightful owner of Cross painting
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is officially disputing a claim by a German lawyer that it does not rightfully own Henri Edmund Cross’ “Regatta in Venice,” an early 20th century pointillist painting that was given to the MFAH in 1958 by philanthropist Oveta Culp Hobby.
MFAH officials filed a pleading Friday with a court in Potsdam, Germany, as a rebuttal to a claim of ownership filed Jan. 21 by Berlin-based attorney Christoph Partsch, who said his clients are grandchildren of the late Gaston Lévy, a Jewish real estate developer who fled his chateau in France in the 1940s before his famous art collection was confiscated by Nazi forces.
Partsch told the Chronicle last week his clients learned of the painting after it was lent to the Museum Barberini in Potsdam for a retrospective of Cross’ works that is up through Feb. 17. “Regatta in Venice,” a 29-by-36-inch canvas, depicts leisurely boaters in a bay with the Venetian skyline and sailing ships.
No one questions that at some point the painting was confiscated by German forces: A label on its verso (or back side) carries an inventory number from Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Third Reich task force charged with confiscating furnishings and artworks from Jewish owners, after they were seized. But the majority of works taken by those forces were recovered and returned after the
war, through restitution programs, to their original owners; so the existence of the label may not tell the whole story of the painting’s ownership history.
Holes in history
The museum questions several elements of Partsch’s claim; but most importantly, it has produced documentation of a paper trail that shows the painting was owned by the Parisian Natasha Fliegers, not Levy; and that it was returned to her by authorities before she sold it through a New York gallery to Hobby.
According to a statement from the MFAH, the museum’s researchers established that on May 10, 1949, the painting was recovered by the Office des Biens et Intérêts Privés (OBIP) and the Commission de Récupération Artistique (CRA) and returned to Fliegers, who was living in New York at the time. Documents related to the restitution identify the painting by the label “MAB 1085” — the ERR inventory number.
The museum’s pleading also notes that the plaintiffs have not presented proof that they are Lévy’s rightful heirs; and that Lévy did not file a claim for compensation for “Regatta in Venice” in 1956, when he filed claims for other objects from his collection, including other paintings by Cross.
‘Poverty’ of claim
According to the MFAH document, Fliegers consigned the painting for sale in 1953 to Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York. Hobby purchased it from the gallery in 1954. Both transactions are documented in the gallery’s stock book.
“This is contrary to the claimants’ assertions that the painting was smuggled out of France by Mrs. Hobby,” the museum’s statement notes. “Based on the facts of the provenance research, the museum stands by its ownership of ‘Regatta in Venice.’ ”
Partsch said he was “amazed by the poverty of the MFAH’s arguments.”
He plans to file a formal response to the museum’s brief. The court could potentially call for a hearing, but will ultimately decide who owns the painting.