U.S. woman sues foundation over painting bought in Nazi Germany

Lawyers for the estate of a late Jewish art dealer are demanding that the stepdaughter of a German doctor allow them to inspect a 19th-century painting they claim he obtained when it was auctioned under duress in Nazi Germany.

The Canadian foundation that inherited Max Stern's estate claims he was forced to close a family gallery in 1937 under anti-Jewish laws adopted by the Germany government and never received proceeds from the auction because of discriminatory taxes.

It filed a lawsuit last year in U.S. District Court trying to reclaim the painting, Girl from the Sabiner Mountains, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

The lawsuit is among dozens of legal cases filed since World War II by Jewish victims and their families trying to reclaim art allegedly seized by the Nazi government, said Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Bringing lawsuits is difficult, he said, because private art sales are often poorly documented.

The lawyers accuse German baroness Maria-Luise Bissonnette, 83, who inherited the painting, of mailing it to Germany and starting a legal case there to circumvent their lawsuit.

The conflict began in 2004 when Bissonnette put the painting up for sale. Bissonnette said in an interview she and her family have done nothing wrong.

"I have the receipt. My father paid for it," she said. "I would like to hope that my parents' names would be cleared."

Representatives of Stern's foundation are scheduled to appear in court June 1 to ask a judge to order Bissonnette to stop moving the painting and to permit the foundation to inspect it and the facility holding it.

Foundation lawyers allege Bissonnette's stepfather, Dr. Karl Wilharm, was a high-ranking member of the Storm Troopers and a Nazi party member. They say a German court recognized in 1964 that the auction where he bought the painting was coerced.

But Bissonnette said Wilharm actually held a meaningless title given by a Nazi police force that demanded use of a former bookbinding factory he owned. She said her father disliked the Nazi regime and certainly never stole.

Representatives of Stern's foundation also filed mail receipts accusing Bissonnette of deception. One receipt shows she told the U.S. Postal Service that the artwork was worth just $50, a claim foundation lawyers say may have violated customs laws.

Bissonnette said she was not sure what the painting was worth when she mailed it and kept her estimate low to discourage thieves.

In court documents, Bissonnette's lawyer said she will allow Stern's foundation to inspect the painting, but only at her German lawyer's office.

"We've tried to work this out on a consensual basis, and we just haven't been able to," said Thomas Kline, a Washington-based lawyer for the estate.