Menzel v. List

Last updated
Menzel v. List
Seal of the New York Court of Appeals.svg
Court New York Court of Appeals
Full case nameMenzel v. List
ArguedJanuary 7, 1969
DecidedFebruary 26, 1969
Citation(s)Menzel v. List, 24 N.Y.2d 91, 298 N.Y.S.2d 979, 246 N.E.2d 742 (N.Y. 1969)
Court membership
Chief judgeARTHUR G. KLEIN, J.

Menzel v. List was a landmark restitution case involving Nazi looted art.

Contents

It was filed by the widow Erna Menzel whose art collection was seized from the Menzel apartment in Brussels in 1941 after the Jewish family fled the Nazis. Menzel's attempt to recover her artworks through litigation was the first such case in the United States and is considered a landmark case that is widely cited.

The events leading up to the lawsuit

Mr. and Mrs Menzel fled the Nazis in 1941, going from Belgium to the United States. When they returned to the apartment after the end of WWII, they discovered a receipt from the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, a Nazi looting organization, for a painting by Marc Chagall called variously L'Echelle de Jacob or Le Paysan et l'Echelle or The Peasant and the Ladder or Jacob's Ladder that the Nazis had seized. [1] [2]

The Menzels looked unsuccessfully for the stolen Chagall. After Mr. Menzel died in 1960, Erna Menzel continued to search. She found a mention of the Chagall in a catalog in 1962 and contacted the possessor, the American art collector Albert A. List, informing him that the artwork had been seized by the Nazis from her collection and requesting its return. [3] List, who said he had bought the painting from Perls Galleries in New York in 1955 and was unaware of its history. [4] refused to return it. Menzel filed a lawsuit. which was known as Menzel v. List. Klaus Perls, the owner of Perls Gallery, was named as a third party defendant. [5] List also filed suit against Perls. Perls, a refugee from the Nazis, and a former head of the Art Dealers' Association of America, also said he did not know that Chagall had been looted. [5] [6]

Landmark lawsuit, landmark decision

The restitution claim was the first of its kind in the United States and as such gained considerable legal and media attention. In addition to concerning the theft of artwork by a Nazi looting organisation in a country occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, it also posed important issues for the art world.

The New York Times called it a "classic legal domino game". [7]

In 1966, the Supreme Court of New York decided in favor of Mrs. Menzel in the first restitution case of its kind. [8] [9]

Mrs Menzel's lawsuit made history and it is cited in numerous articles and books, including A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections and Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of Museums. [10] [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Chagall</span> Russian-French artist (1887–1985)

Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist. An early modernist, he was associated with the École de Paris as well as several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi plunder</span> Nazi looting in WWII

Nazi plunder was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bavarian State Painting Collections</span>

The Bavarian State Painting Collections, based in Munich, Germany, oversees artwork held by the Free State of Bavaria. It was established in 1799 as Centralgemäldegaleriedirektion. Artwork includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, video art and installation art. Pieces are on display in numerous galleries and museums throughout Bavaria.

Klaus Gunther Perls (1912–2008) was born in Berlin, Germany, where his parents were art dealers. He studied art history in Munich, but after the Nazis stopped granting degrees to Jews he moved to Basel, Switzerland and completed his studies. Here, he wrote a dissertation on the 15th-century French painter Jean Fouquet.

Curt Valentin was a German-Jewish art dealer known for handling modern art, particularly sculpture, and works classified as "degenerate", seized from public museums or looted from private collectors by the Nazi regime in Germany.

Art and culture law refers to legal aspects of the visual arts, antiquities, cultural heritage, and the art market and encompasses the safeguarding, regulation, and facilitation of artistic creation, utilization, and promotion. Practitioners of art law navigate various legal areas, including intellectual property, contract, constitutional, tort, tax, commercial, immigration law, estates and wills, cultural property law, and international law to protect the interests of their clients.

Weyhe Gallery, established in 1919 in New York City, is an art gallery specializing in prints. It is now located in Mount Desert, Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gurlitt Collection</span> Art collection

The Gurlitt Collection was a collection of around 1,500 art works assembled by Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of Hitler's official art dealers, Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895–1956), and which was found to have contained several artworks looted from Jews by the Nazis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelius Gurlitt (art collector)</span>

Rolf Nikolaus Cornelius Gurlitt was a German art collector. The son of Hildebrand Gurlitt, a Nazi-era dealer of looted art, Gurlitt was discovered to have concealed a stash of artworks known as the Gurlitt trove or Gurlitt Collection, several of which have been proven to have been looted from Jews by Nazis.

Stephen Hahn was an American art dealer and collector. An expert on Picasso, Degas, and others, he held one of the most significant collections of twentieth century masters during his years operating the Stephen Hahn Gallery in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Wendland</span> German art dealer

Dr. Hans Otto Carl Wendland was a German art dealer who was implicated in the trade in art looted by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. Among his key contacts were the French industrialist and collaborator Achille Boitel, Hugo Engel, Allen Loebl, Yves Perdoux and others in Paris and Charles Montag, Théodore Fischer, Alexander von Frey and Albert Skira in Switzerland.

Eberhard W. Kornfeld was a Swiss auctioneer, author, art dealer, and collector based in Bern.

<i>The Diggers</i> (Van Gogh) 1889 painting by Vincent Van Gogh

The Diggers or Two Diggers is an oil painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh painted in late 1889 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. It is in the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), Detroit, Michigan, United States. The Diggers is sometimes called Two Diggers among Trees to distinguish it from The Diggers , 1889.

Fritz Nathan was a German-Swiss gallery owner and art dealer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi looting of artworks by Vincent van Gogh</span>

Many priceless artworks by the Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh were looted by Nazis during 1933–1945, mostly from Jewish collectors forced into exile or murdered.

<i>Dead City III</i> Painting by Egon Schiele

Dead City III is an oil on wood expressionist painting by Egon Schiele from 1911. It was owned by the Viennese cabaret artist Fritz Grünbaum before he was murdered by Nazis and has been the object of high-profile disputes and court battles. Suspected by New York's District Attorney of having been looted by the Nazis, Dead City III was temporarily confiscated from the Austrian art collector Rudolf Leopold after he loaned it to a New York museum in 1998. The ownership history of the painting has been the object of high-profile court cases in which two very different versions of the painting's journey from the Jewish Holocaust victim to the Austrian art collector collide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walter Westfeld</span> German Jewish art collector murdered at Auschwitz

Walter Westfeld or Westfield was a German Jewish art collector and art dealer whose collection was plundered by Nazis. Westfield was murdered in the Holocaust.

Lea Bondi, later Lea Jaray or Lea Bondi-Jaray was an Austrian art dealer and art collector who was forced to emigrate to Great Britain due to Nazi persecution after the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich. The Würthle Gallery, which she ran, was "Aryanized" by Nazis and her art collection, including the Portrait of Wally by Egon Schiele, extorted.

Hugo Nathan (1861-1921) was a German Jewish banker and art collector.

References

  1. ↑ "MENZEL v. LIST | 49 Misc.2d 300 (1966) | sc2d3001263 | Leagle.com". Leagle. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  2. ↑ Harclerode, Peter; Brendan Pittaway (2000). The lost masters : World War II and the looting of Europe's treasurehouses (1st Welcome Rain ed.). New York: Welcome Rain Publishers. pp. 236_237. ISBN   1-56649-165-7. OCLC   44266421.
  3. ↑ Malaro, Marie C.; DeAngelis, Ildiko Pogány (2012). A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections. Smithsonian Institution. ISBN   978-1-58834-322-2.
  4. ↑ "Menzel v. List". www.uniset.ca. Archived from the original on 5 December 2007. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  5. 1 2 "Methodologies and Resources: Perls Galleries records, 1937-1997". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2020-12-20. Klaus was named as a third-party defendant in the 1969 World War II looted art case Menzel v. List. When Erna Menzel sued Albert List for ownership of a Chagall painting confiscated from Menzel by the Nazis, List in turn sued Perls, who had sold him the painting in 1955, having purchased it himself from an art dealer in Paris. The court awarded the Chagall painting to Menzel and ordered Perls to pay List the appreciated value of the painting.
  6. ↑ CultureGrrl (2008-06-10). "Perls of Wisdom: Nuggets from Late NYC Dealer Klaus Perls, 96". CultureGrrl - Arts Journal. Archived from the original on 22 November 2008. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  7. ↑ Grant, Daniel (1987-11-29). "PERSONAL FINANCE; Collecting Art? Beware the Wrinkles (Published 1987)". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on 19 December 2020. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  8. ↑ "Owner of Chagall Painting Looted by Nazis Wins It Back in U.S. Court". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. 1965-11-17. Archived from the original on 14 November 2018. Retrieved 2020-12-19.
  9. ↑ "Menzel v. List, 24 N.Y.2d 91 | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  10. ↑ Ashton Hawkins; Richard A. Rothman; David B. Goldstein. "A Tale of Two Innocents: Creating an Equitable Balance Between the Rights of Former Owners and Good Faith Purchasers of Stolen Art" (PDF). Fordham L. Rev. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 December 2020.
  11. ↑ Perez-Pena, Richard (1993-10-22). "The Art-Law Center of the Universe" . The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-12-19.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.