German baroness denied appeal to reclaim Nazi-era painting

A painting forcibly auctioned by Germany's Nazi government should remain with the estate of a late Jewish art dealer from Montreal, who lost it when his gallery was liquidated, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston blocks an attempt by German baroness Maria-Luise Bissonnette to recoup the painting Girl from the Sabine Mountains, which has been valued by appraisers at between $67,000 US and $94,000 US.

The painting is believed to be a work of Franz Xaver Winterhalter, a 19th-century artist famous for painting Queen Victoria, the czar of Russia and other European nobles.

Last year, a federal judge in Providence ordered Bissonnette to give the painting to the estate of Max Stern, who lost his family's Düsseldorf art gallery when the Nazis forced its closure in 1937.

Bissonnette then sought to overturn the lower court's ruling and win the painting back.

In Wednesday's three-judge ruling, Judge Bruce Selya said the court was righting a wrong committed during one of history's bleakest periods, the Holocaust.

"The mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine," Selya said.

Bissonnette, who lives in Providence, declined to comment on the ruling. Thomas Kline, a lawyer for the Stern estate, said he could not comment until reading the decision.

Disputed art travelled 2 continents

Bissonnette's father, Dr. Karl Heinrich Christian Wilharm, bought the disputed painting at an art auction in Cologne in 1937.

Wilharm was a member of the Nazi Party and also the Sturmabteilung, or SA, a Nazi paramilitary force.

After his gallery closed, Stern fled to England, eventually resettled in Canada and became a successful art dealer in Montreal.

He died in 1987 and left his estate to three universities, which are trying to reclaim Stern's works.

Bissonnette moved to the United States and later inherited the painting from her parents.

Stern's estate tracked down the missing artwork when Bissonnette attempted to sell it in 2005. After negotiations broke down, lawyers for Stern's estate filed a lawsuit seeking the painting's return.

The lawsuit argued that since Nazi authorities illegally auctioned Stern's artwork, any sales that followed were invalid.

In her appeal, Bissonnette argued the Stern estate waited too long to bring its lawsuit and that the lower court judge should have allowed Bissonnette more time for discovery.