Posted on 05/26/2004 2:53:08 PM PDT by freedom44
US screen legend Elizabeth Taylor has sued the family of a victim of Nazi rule in Germany as part of a legal battle to hold on to a precious Van Gogh painting that she claims is rightfully hers.
The violet-eyed movie goddess filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against the South African and Canadian descendants of a Jewish woman who fled the Nazis who say the painting was looted from their relative and have demanded its return or a share of its sale proceeds, court documents showed today.
Double Oscar-winner Taylor, 72, says she bought Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh's 1889 work, View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy at a Sotheby's auction in London in 1963, at the height of her fame.
According to the suit that names South African Mark Orkin and Canadian residents Sarah-Rose Josepha Adler and Andrew Orkin as defendants, Taylor now keeps the work in her Los Angeles mansion.
The trio contacted Taylor's business manager claiming to be heirs of Margarete Mauthner, a former owner of the painting who fled Germany after Hitler rose to power before World War II.
They have alleged the painting was looted by the Nazis, who built up a huge stockpile of valuable art works seized from Jews, a practice that has in recent years sparked waves of litigation over the ownership of art pieces.
But Cleopatra star Taylor claims the family has failed to show that the artwork was ever illegally seized from Mauthner.
"Defendants have provided not a shred of evidence that the painting ever fell into Nazi hands or any specific information concerning how or when Mauthner 'lost possession' of it," the suit states.
Taylor maintains that the catalogue from the 1963 auction at which she bought the piece stated that the painting had once belonged to Mauthner, but that it passed to two reputable galleries before it was sold to a German Jew, Alfred Wolf, who himself fled the Nazis in 1933 for Buenos Aires.
There's periodically litigation relating to treaties with various tribes over land ownership/treaty issues, but that's a legal track.
The oldest "controversy" that comes to mind is the negotiations between Israel and the Vatican over Jewish artifacts looted by the Romans, though that will be predated if Egypt does in fact file their lawsuit against Jews worldwide over possessions taken from Egypt by the Jewish people during the Exodus. Of course they lost that one in Alexander's court, so maybe they won't try again.
Particularly when you're not dealing with "top tier" works, which of course this is, which don't have a trail.
When sales are involved rather than looting, "Fair value", impossible to determine, isn't always the issue, rather the forced nature of the sale.
England has, over the years, sent polite notes to Tokyo whenever Japanese businessmen propose salvaging HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse.
The text of said notes mentions that Her Majesty's Government would regard such salvage as "an unfriendly act." Kindly recall what that statement means in the subtle, nuanced discourse of international diplomacy...
Incidentally, if there were fatalities in the aircraft crash, the aircraft is considered to be a gravesite.
A lot depends on whom the burden falls, I suppose. Proving coercion in an undocumented transaction 60 years on may be difficult. I would be inclined to give the heirs the benefit of the doubt, but the law may specify otherwise.
Smirk. Yeah...right. Lots of observant Jews in Argentina.
Those claiming to have rights painting could made her an offer to buy it back from her at market price.Why should she lose if she made a legitimate purchase?
OK.
I see. Interesting conumdrum for Ms Taylor.
You've got Freepmail.
Quite a few Jews emmigrated to Argentina, I think it's 4 or 5th on the list, after the US, England and Palestine. The issue was who would let you in, and most nations quotas were filled.
You have to wonder if poor old Vincent isn't spinning in his grave. During his unfortunate life he made pennies, if that, from the many paintings he produced. Sometime a genius must first die before he becomes a success. As for Taylor, I have little or no sympathy. She's just another rich, spoiled Hwood leftist RAT. A good-hearted person would donate the painting to a worthy art museum so the world might enjoy it.
"Boys From Brazil" was an interesting book/movie.
Along with tax deductions for everyone. A reasonable solution.
Well, Liz filed the lawsuit. As I understand it, in cases like these it's pretty well understood that Jews in Germany were under duress from 1932-33 forward. Personally, I wouldn't want to enter a courtroom to prove this wasn't the case in this instance, particularly if I were a public figure. Should have been an easier way to solve the problem.
The heirs, God bless them, are the ones contesting the suit, so they have a burden of showing that some mitigating factor overcomes Taylor's showing of ownership. From the facts in this thread, they only have proof of prior ownership, a transaction of some kind during a turbulent and frightful period, and the vague insinuation that something underhanded happened. That is a rather slim reed on which to base one's hopes of acquiring a multi-million dollar painting. The burden may be on the heirs to prove something wrongful was done, or else their position would have to be that all transactions involving Jews from that period are void, and I've never seen that proposition in the law.
As an example of just leaping to conclusions being a bad idea, suppose the lady emigrated to neutral Sweden or Switzerland and sold the painting there. Could her heirs argue coercion? What if it was sold at auction in June 1939 in Amsterdam or Paris. Coercion? The heirs argue that it doesn't matter that the buyer was a Jew, but I tend to think that does have at least some significance, in the sense that if it had been sold to Himmler that would raise some serious red flags. Could she have sold the painting in 1932 and simply kept the sale quiet despite the official registrar cited by the heirs? I think that something has to be proven before you strip a current owner of her title. Perhaps the heirs do have some evidence. That is just my opinion, the law may be different.
It's a tough case, the kind that buys lawyers their summer houses in the Hamptons. I agree with you, some kind of settlement makes sense. This suit by Taylor may be her way of clearing the air of a whispering campaign against her and forcing everybody to sit down and talk about it.
Yes...on the face of it. But what if Van Gogh was prescient and created a painting whose subject matter dealt with the events of 1930-40 in Nazi Germany? Then it would make sense. And it would make the painting something that Elizabeth Taylor could not afford.
Just an idle musing.
Well, those "reputable" companies are not so reputable. This has been a problem since the end of the war.
The families, or the buyers of the loot, should think about it. Of course, well known artwork and financial documents aside, it's a to the victor belongs the spoils system, unless an heir is foolish enough to auction a piece of furniture, or gold, as authentic, from the gold train.
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