It is a little shepherdess, wearing a red kerchief and flanked by her sheep, who sets fire to the American and French courts.
This Tuesday morning, The Shepherdess returning her sheep, by impressionist Camille Pissarro (1886), temporarily exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay (7th arrondissement), estimated at 1.5 million euros, was invited to the Paris judicial court. .
The case, against a background of Nazi occupation, the theft of works of art, French collaboration, mobilized three judges, three French lawyers, opposed to three on the American side, including one fresh off the plane.
“These are not small lawyers like us, tackle with a bit of banter Jacques Fourvel in full hearing, on the benches of the Frenchies.
There, these are legal fees at 500,000 dollars!
"
Claimed by an American museum, the painting is claimed by Léone Meyer (right).
DR
It all started in 1942 with a little girl.
Léone, 3, is torn from her parents, deported to Auschwitz.
The orphan was then adopted at the age of 7 by a couple: the Meyers.
It is their only child, pampered.
Raoul Meyer, owner of Galeries Lafayette from 1944 to 1970, is also a fine art collector.
He buys the Shepherdess and other paintings.
In 1941, the Nazis looted his collection.
At the end of the war, Raoul sets out to search for his paintings, picks up some of them.
In 1951, he located his shepherdess in Switzerland and tried, in vain, to recover her.
A painting found in Oklahoma
The painting then disappears for 43 years.
In 2000, Leone, who took up the torch, found the Shepherdess in the USA, in the museum of the University of Oklahoma, one of the largest American campuses.
It is a wealthy couple who donated it, along with other paintings by masters, to the University museum.
Their son studied there ... "No research on the provenance of the legitimate owner," annoys Ron Soffer, Leone's lawyer for a year.
Olivier de Baecque, lawyer for the Americans, who recognizes "a highly emotional aspect" to this file defends himself: "These people are not the Nazi despoilers.
They bought the painting in a gallery which has a storefront ”.
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Never mind.
Leone then launches proceedings against the museum.
The old lady wants to recover her Shepherdess to donate to the Musée d'Orsay (7th century), "available to everyone".
On the American side, batteries of lawyers are set in motion.
Student families demand his return
The "impressionist" subject which, at the time, made the front page of the media across the Atlantic, ignites and divides the campus.
In 2015, students - whose parents pay some 30,000 euros per year just for tuition fees - rent a small plane like those we see on the beaches in summer, dragging advertising banners.
On the night of a football match, the cuckoo flies over the crowded stadium at low altitude, brandishing a “Return the stolen art”!
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Finally, the university offers a unique and unprecedented restitution agreement: a rotation in perpetuity with the table 3 years in France and 3 years in the United States.
“In fact, retrospectively analyzing the octogenarian, the Americans' deal was not very clean.
They had very good lawyers.
They knew very well that this was not applicable, for reasons of logistics and insurance, in particular at the Musée d'Orsay.
They said to themselves, the old lady of 77 years, she is not going to perceive all that!
"
The Americans sue the French owner
At the same time, Leone confesses that she was motivated by seeing her father's painting again.
“When the Shepherdess arrived in Paris, at the Musée d'Orsay, the curator stepped back to leave me alone.
The painting was there in front of me on an easel.
I started to cry ".
Today, Leone no longer wants her shepherdess to leave France - which was planned for next July.
La Parisienne demanded, by way of justice, the sequestration of the work and the cancellation of the deal, relying on the 1945 ordinance on works of art looted by the Nazis.
France will render its court decision, on the merits, on June 2.
The lawyers of Mrs. Meyer, Ron Soffer, Jacques Fourvel and Soraya Racette.
LP / Celine Carez
Except that in Oklahoma, it is not understood that way.
The Americans are suing Leone in federal court in Oklahoma for "civil contempt", accusing him of not abandoning the French lawsuits!
The icing on the cake, the American justice system has matched it with financial sanctions: $ 2,500 per day on call.
"They are completely off the mark," tackle Yvonne.
Today, the one who defines herself as "a young lady of 81 years" and who has "confidence in the justice of my country" has high hopes of seeing the Shepherdess returned.
"It's a picture full of charm," savor Leone.
We're inside.
It's intimate.
We think we are in the enclosure with the shepherdess rounding up the sheep.
In fact, we take ourselves for the shepherdess.
"
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