Metropolitan Museum of Art does not have to surrender Picasso painting
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The Actor by Pablo Picasso is a highlight of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York's second-floor galleries showing 19th and early 20th century European paintings and sculptures.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will be able to keep one of its most famous Pablo Picasso paintings after a judge threw out a lawsuit by the estate of a German businessman.
It was seeking to recover the work that it claimed he was forced to sell a discount while fleeing the Nazis. The Actor painting is a highlight of the museum's second-floor galleries showing 19th and early 20th century European paintings and sculptures.
The judge on Wednesday granted the museum's request to throw out the suit by the estate of Alice and Paul Leffmann, who sold the work for US$13,200 (S$17,500) in 1938 in order to raise money to leave Italy.
They had moved there to flee the Nazis in Germany but were forced to sell the painting when it became too dangerous for them to stay.
The painting was bought by a pair of art dealers, one of whom loaned the work to the Museum of Modern Art the following year.
The work was then sold for US$22,500 in 1941 to Ms Thelma Chrysler Foy, an automobile heiress, who donated it to the Met, where it has remained ever since.
The Met refused to hand over the painting after the Leffmanns' estate demanded its return in 2010 and sued in 2016, asking a court to award it US$100 million in damages too.
