France’s top appeals court rejects a bid by an American couple to win back a painting by Impressionist master Camille Pissarro looted from a Jewish collector during World War II.
Art collectors Bruce and Robbi Toll insist they had no idea the painting — “La Cueillette” (“Picking Peas”) — had been looted when they bought it at Christie’s in New York in 1995 for $800,000.
But the Court of Cassation rejects their appeal and uphold an earlier ruling that the painting should be returned to the family of the Jewish collector.
The decision ends a three-year legal saga over the fate of the painting.
The Tolls had launched the appeal after previous court rulings found that the painting belonged by rights to the descendants of Jewish businessman Simon Bauer.
Bauer himself narrowly escaped death when a train drivers’ strike stopped him from being sent to a concentration camp.
He recovered a few of his paintings after the war, but never “La Cueillette”, which Pissarro had painted in 1887. He died in 1947, two years after the end of World War II.
— AFP
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