The Thyssen museum is confident in keeping the 'pissarro' despite the US Supreme Court ruling

The reaction of the Thyssen museum is summed up in that, substantially, nothing has changed.

And so it has made it clear today, Friday, in a statement that expresses confidence full of language and legal nuances, one day after the United States Supreme Court unanimously agreed with the Cassirer family, heirs to a painting by Camille Pissarro that It was stolen from them by the Nazis in 1939 and has belonged to the Spanish State since the 1990s as part of the Madrid center's collection, thus opening the door to its return.

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The US Supreme Court rules in favor of the heirs of the Thyssen 'pissarro' looted by the Nazis

The American high court did not establish that the impressionist painting

, from 1897, has to return to the grandchildren of Lilly Cassirer, a Jewess, who had to sell her off to obtain a visa and leave Germany at the beginning of World War II, fleeing a fate that could have ended in a concentration camp.

But the Supreme Court did agree with the heirs that the case should be resolved by California law, favorable to the painting being returned, and not the Spanish law, as Thyssen claims.

The question, thus, now passes again before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

“The Foundation is convinced that the decision of the District Court, according to which […] the law applicable to the case is Spanish (and consequently the Foundation is the legitimate owner of the Pissarro painting), will be confirmed by the Court of Appeal," the statement said.

Public possession of the painting for six years is sufficient, according to Spanish law, to consider Thyssen as its rightful owner.

In contrast, under California law, an object obtained in this way cannot create legitimate title.

Along five pages, the museum also lists the reasons why it considers that the painting legitimately belongs to it, since Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza acquired it for $360,000 at the Stephen Hahn Gallery in New York in 1976. Today the painting is valued at about 28 million euros.

And just as the Supreme Court ruling did yesterday, the center itself also reviews the journey of the painting in a long chronology, whose first chapter was written in 1939: “Lilly Cassirer Neubauer sells the painting below its market value to Jakob Scheidwimmer , art dealer and member of the Nazi party […].

The painting was subsequently acquired by D. Julius Sulzbacher, from whom it was later confiscated by the Gestapo”.

In 1958, “Lilly Cassirer Neubauer reaches an agreement with the German Government, with the dealer Jakob Scheidwimmer and with D. Julius Sulzbacher, for which she accepts a compensation of 120,000 German marks from the German Federal Government, a figure that is proven to correspond to the market value at that time.

[…] That agreement put an end to all claims between the parties.

As of that date, neither Lilly Cassirer Neubauer nor her heirs made any further efforts to locate or recover the painting,” according to the statement.

After the baron's purchase, years later, the chronology also highlights that in 1993, when "the Spanish State agreed to the sale of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection", "no irregularity was detected in the seller's title".

The museum recalls that it exhibited the

on several occasions, in different countries and for almost eight years before Claude Cassirer claimed it, in 2002. In any case, in 2005 Lilly Cassirer's heir filed a lawsuit from the place where it was had retired, California.

The man died five years later, at the age of 89, and since then the litigation was continued by his children David and Ana.

In the last decade, the case has been bouncing between different US courts, from the District Court, to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, including the Supreme Court itself, both for questions of form and substance, until yesterday the penultimate installment was written of history

While it is definitively decided who owns it, yes, the painting continues to hang on the walls of the Thyssen.