Judge rules Picasso can be auctioned despite claims of Nazi sale

A JUDGE yesterday ruled that a Picasso painting can be sold at auction, despite a claim that its former owner was forced to sell it to the Nazis.

US District Judge Jed Rakoff issued the order four days after Julius H Schoeps, an heir to Berlin banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan to stop the sale.

The judge had temporarily blocked the auction of Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto, which is expected to fetch up to £30 million (€44.7m), saying he needed to decide whether the Nazis forced its former owner to sell it in the 1930s because his family descended from Jews.

The painting was scheduled to be sold at Christie’s today as part of its Impressionist and Modern Art sale.

The painting of de Soto, who shared a studio with Pablo Picasso, was put up for sale by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation, a London-based charity.

In the lawsuit, Mr Schoeps sought to be declared the lawful owner.

The oil-on-canvas painting, signed and dated in 1903, was described in a Christie’s catalogue as capturing de Soto’s haunting face with heavy features.

“The elegantly dressed sitter appears to scrutinise the viewer with an intense gaze, his inner agitation suggested by the forceful brushstrokes and the cloud of smoke hovering above him,” said the catalogue for the Impressionist and Modern Art sale.

Christie’s said the painting was being sold by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s foundation for income to be spent on a variety of charitable purposes.

In a statement yesterday, the foundation dismissed the 11th-hour legal action as “utterly spurious, without legal or factual substance”.

It said the painting was purchased at a Sotheby’s auction in 1995 and exhibited on many occasions since.

The foundation said the painting’s provenance was never questioned during that 11-year period.

Christie’s declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit said Mr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was subjected to Nazi intimidation that forced him to flee his mansion and begin selling prized paintings into a depressed art market.

The lawsuit said Mr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy placed five Picassos, including the de Soto painting, on consignment for sale with Berlin art dealer Justin Thannhauser in 1934. Mr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a member of the family that included the composer Felix Mendelssohn, died in 1935.

In September 1936, Mr Thannhauser sold the painting to M Knoedler & Co in New York. Since the sale, the painting has been in the New York art market for about 50 years. It was sold at auction at Sotheby’s New York in 1995 to Mr Lloyd Webber, the lawsuit said.