An impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro at the heart of a Meldois showdown

Despoiled or not despoiled?

In the Meaux court, the cloudy past of

an impressionist painting by Camille Pissarro, is the subject of a dispute between its current owners and the heir of art collector Simon Bauer looted during the Second World War.

According to the descendants of the industrialist, Jewish and French who died in 1947, the work looted by the Nazis should be returned to them.

This is strongly contested by the Seine-et-Marnaise family to whom the canvas now belongs and who contested on Friday, in Meaux, having acquired it in a litigious way.

According to Jean-Jacques Bauer, Simon Bauer's grandson, the work in question - which depicts a woman seated in a dark interior - was part of his grandfather's collection of 93 paintings.

An art lover, he had notably brought together 13 works by Camille Pissarro, including a canvas called

, the description of which corresponds to that of

.

Confiscated in 1943, his heritage was sold by an art dealer appointed by the Vichy government's Jewish Affairs Commission, which collaborated with Nazi Germany.

A survivor of Drancy, Simon Bauer devoted the rest of his life to rebuilding his collection, a task today assumed by his descendants.

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The only document mentioning the sale of

is a sale report dated 1907. However, the document does not mention either of the parties.

From this date, the versions diverge.

According to Jean-Jacques Bauer's lawyer, the existence of various pre-war inventories and catalogs mentioning

would make it possible to attest to its presence in Simon Bauer's collection.

92-year-old Jean-Jacques Bauer would also have kept the memory of the painting seen at his grandfather's house, and would have kept a vivid impression of a painted distaff, an ancient instrument used for spinning.

The Mullot family, offended at being accused of having acquired the work in a litigious way, rejected this argument in court.

The painting in their possession comes to them from their father, Jean-Jacques Mullot, a farmer in Aubepierre-Ozouer-le-Repos (Seine-et-Marne) who died in 2000. He himself had inherited

from his mother, which had received it as a wedding gift in 1912. It was the attempt to put the painting up for sale, in 2019, which alerted the Bauer heirs and caused the sequestration of the work as well as the start of the affair. judicial.

Spinner versus knitter

According to the lawyer for the Mullot family, there would actually be confusion about two works by Camille Pissarro, and not about the same painting having changed its name.

The Knitter

The Fileuse

, advanced Master Audrey Obadia, counsel for one of the Mullot children, on Friday.

La Tricoteuse

," added Master Thierry Jove Dejaiffe on behalf of five of the Mullot children.

Interior Breton

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It is common for the same work to have different names, taking as an example

, another canvas by Pissarro, also called

.

In 2020, this painting, then the property of American collectors, was the subject of a dispute settled by the Court of Cassation, which definitively returned it to the Bauer family.

Thus, the painting in question in Meaux would have been known under different names:

,

,

or

.

For the lawyers of the Mullot family, if the painting had been looted, it would not have been kept in its original frame.

Also, it does not have an inventory tag.

But

, he maintains.

A legal expert concluded that

and

were two different works and could not be confused and that, unlike the first,

- valued today at 150,000 euros - is not part of the list of looted property.

An expertise described as

and full of shortcomings, denounced the lawyer for the Bauer family.