Lawyers for the heiress
of Camille Pissarro's
painting
The Shepherdess returning sheep
, looted by the Nazis from its Jewish owners during the Occupation in France, asked French justice on Tuesday to order an American university to give up its lawsuits against their client.
Read also: Pissarro looted by the Nazis: French justice outraged by the attitude of the American museum
"
The shepherdess returning from the sheep
" is the subject of an intense legal battle between Léone Meyer, 81, - an orphan survivor of the Shoah, adopted at the end of the Second World War by the owners of the painting - and the museum from the University of Oklahoma which received it as a bequest in 2000.
Read also: Jewish spoliations: showdown around
La Bergère
de Pissarro
The summary chamber of the Paris court will announce its decision on April 13.
It will also respond to another request from Léone Meyer concerning the sequestration of the painting of the impressionist painter.
Seized by the University of Oklahoma, the American justice ordered Léone Meyer to cease all the procedures started in France under penalty of several million dollars of sanctions.
Unable to go against an American court decision, Léone Meyer's lawyers in turn asked the French courts to order the university to “
desist
” from all its lawsuits against their client.
According to American justice, Léone Meyer did not respect a contract concluded between her and the university in 2016.
This agreement, today denounced by Léone Meyer, recognizes the property of the heiress on the looted painting but provides that the canvas is exhibited for five years in a French museum, before commuting every three years between Paris and Oklahoma.
The work, currently at the Musée d'Orsay, should therefore return to the United States in July.
Another clause obliges Léone Meyer to bequeath the canvas, during her lifetime, to an art establishment which undertakes to respect these perpetual back and forths, under penalty of being returned to the American state upon the death of the artist. heiress.
The Musée d'Orsay refused the donation, worried about the cost of such round trips and the damage it could cause to the painting.
"
A contract is sacred
", argued Me Olivier de Baecque on behalf of the American university.
"
A transaction is sacred but what is even more sacred is to return property looted by the Gestapo,
" replied Me Ron Soffer, lawyer for Léone Meyer.
The work belonged to the collection of Raoul and Yvonne Meyer.
In 1940, this Jewish family thought of putting it away in the safe of a bank in Mont-de-Marsan, in southwestern France.
But, in 1941, the Nazis seized it.
Read also: André Derain: justice orders the restitution to the heirs of a looted Jewish art dealer
This kind of case knows a case which in France can set a precedent.
In September 2020, French justice condemned the State to give back three works of the painter André Derain, one of the founders of Fauvism, to the heirs of René Gimpel, a great collector despoiled by the Nazis.
The history of this plundered Pissaro and not handed over to its owners dates back to 1945. In fact, at the end of the war, the Meyer family recovered part of their property but not
The Shepherdess returning from the sheep
.
In 1951, the painting resurfaced in Switzerland before reappearing in New York.
Bought by a couple of American collectors in 1957, it was bequeathed in 2000 to the University of Oklahoma Foundation.
It was there that Léone Meyer decided to recover the painting looted from her adoptive parents.
In 2013, she finally found her trace and began negotiations with the University of Oklahoma which led to the disputed 2016 agreement.
