A New York judge has ordered that Seated Man With a Cane, Modigliani’s 1918 oil portrait of a well-dressed man in a hat and tie, must be returned to the estate of Oscar Stettiner within 30 days. The ruling, handed down by Judge Joel M. Cohen of the New York Supreme Court, brings to what may be its operative conclusion a legal dispute that has run for more than twelve years. However, David Nahmad and his representatives have confirmed they intend to appeal.
Stettiner was a British Jewish antiques dealer who ran a gallery in Paris. When the German occupation came, he fled in 1939, leaving the painting behind. A man named Marcel Philippon, appointed by the Nazi authorities to dispose of Jewish-owned property, confiscated and sold it. After the war, Stettiner brought a claim before a French court, which in 1946 ordered the painting returned to him. By then, it had already moved on, and the man who had acquired it claimed to have resold it. Stettiner died in France in 1948, leaving the work unfinished.
The painting surfaced at Christie’s in 1996, where it was purchased by the Nahmad family holding company, International Art Centre, for $3.2 million. The provenance listed in the auction catalogue described the work as passing from a Paris collector to a buyer between 1940 and 1945. Judge Cohen found that description to be, whether by design or inadvertence, erroneous and misleading. Christie’s declined to comment.
Judge Cohen’s findings were clear on the central question. Stettiner owned the painting, or at a minimum had a superior right of possession before its unlawful seizure, and never voluntarily relinquished it. The defendants, he concluded, had failed to raise any material issues of fact and offered no evidence identifying anyone other than Stettiner as the rightful owner.
The Nahmads are among the most powerful families in the international art market, with operations across New York, Monaco and London. Their representatives argued for years that there was genuine doubt whether the painting they had purchased was the same work Stettiner had once owned. That argument did not persuade the court. The case became considerably more complicated after the 2016 Panama Papers leak revealed connections between David Nahmad and the offshore company holding the work. Swiss prosecutors raided a Geneva storage facility and confiscated the painting. Nahmad eventually acknowledged that the International Art Centre was his, though he maintained he had purchased the work in good faith. He pointed to a 2004 loan of the painting to the Jewish Museum in New York as evidence of his intentions. “If you had any doubt about looted art, would you really lend it to a Jewish museum?” he said at the time.
The restitution claim was brought by Philippe Maestracci, Stettiner’s grandson, and the art recovery firm Mondex, which has specialised in recovering looted works. James Palmer, Mondex’s founder, said Maestracci was overwhelmed with joy at the outcome. Maestracci’s lawyer, Phillip Landrigan, was considerably less measured in his assessment of the defence’s conduct, saying the defendants had deliberately prolonged the litigation in the hope that the heir would be worn down and forced to abandon his claim.
Nahmad’s lawyers are now pushing for a trial, arguing the case has been resolved without hearing eyewitness testimony. The witnesses in question are the photographer Frederic Allain and his wife Odile Carlotti-Allain. Allain is the godson of Jean Van der Klip, who purchased the painting in 1944 and whose heirs sold it at the 1996 Christie’s auction. In sworn affirmations, both Allain and his wife state that the painting they saw in their godparents’ home was not Seated Man With a Cane but a smaller, darker, gloomy portrait of a standing man without a cane. Nahmad’s legal team have also cited research by the Modigliani expert Marc Restellini, which they claim disproves Stettiner’s ownership of the painting Nahmad purchased.
Landrigan’s response to the prospect of further appeal was pointed. The Appellate Division has heard Nahmad’s appeals in this matter four times, he noted, and has denied them each time. “Having a right to appeal and its value are two different things,” he said. An appeal, he added, may do nothing more than delay restitution to a Holocaust victim’s heir by another five years.
The painting is currently estimated at $30 million. Artlyst first reported on the dispute in 2014. Whether the 30-day return order will be complied with or suspended pending appeal remains unresolved at the time of writing.
Top Photo: Amedeo Modigliani’sModigliani’s Seated Man With a Cane (1918)Photo: Brian Smith Via X