Heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Reach Settlement Agreements

Written by Gladys Schuman Friday, 25 February 2011 23:51

WASHINGTON, DC.- The heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy are pleased to announce that they have reached a Settlement Agreement with the Trustees of The Andrew Lloyd Webber Art Foundation resolving their ownership claim to the painting The Absinthe Drinker (Angel Fernandez de Soto) (1903) by Pablo Picasso. The terms of the Settlement Agreement are confidential in their entirety. The heirs now relinquish any and all claims of title to this painting. The Mendelssohn heirs settled other matters in 2009 with the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

The Mendelssohn heirs settled other matters in 2009 regarding art Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy transferred in Nazi Germany. In New York, the Mendelssohn heirs reached a settlement agreement in 2009 with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) regarding Picasso's Boy Leading a Horse (1905) and with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (Guggenheim) concerning Picasso's Le Moulin de la Galette (1900).

Prior to the settlement and while the case was in litigation, Judge Jed S. Rakoff, U.S.D.J., found that the Mendelssohn heirs "have adduced competent evidence that Paul [von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy] never intended to transfer any of his paintings and that he was forced to transfer them only because of threats and economic pressure by the Nazi government." Schoeps v. Museum of Modern Art, 594 F.Supp.2d 461, 466 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (Emphasis and italics added).

The Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto, also known as The Absinthe Drinker, is a famous example of Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period. It depicts the intense features and gaze of the artist’s close friend de Soto, who is seated at a café.

Picasso met Angel de Soto in an artists’ gathering in Barcelona in 1899. Back then de Soto was a very colourful and Bohemian character, always elegant and surrounded by women. For a short while Picasso and de Soto shared a studio, and they remained close friends until 1938 – the tragic year when de Soto was killed in the Spanish Civil War. The portrait thus catches Picasso’s personalized approach towards de Soto through the depiction of his exaggerated features and elegant hands.

Soon after being painted, the portrait was acquired by Mr. Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy – a prominent Jewish banker from Berlin, who owned one of the greatest European private art collections at the time. As Hitler came to power in 1933, Mr. von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, like many other Jewish bankers, was targeted by the Nazis. Mr. von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was forced to leave his house in Berlin and was pressured by the Nazis to sell his art works at very low prices.

Judge Rakoff's well-reasoned ruling represented a landmark decision in the field of Holocaust-era art recovery in the U.S. For the first time ever, a U.S. court recognized that victims of Nazi persecution who lost artworks and perhaps other materials as a result of Nazi duress and pressure have a viable judicial remedy to reclaim their property without needing to establish that Nazi authorities seized it directly or ordered a particular sale. The Mendelssohn heirs are gratified to have participated in a case that expands dramatically the potential opportunities of Holocaust victims and heirs to recover property wrongfully taken from them.

Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was a nephew of the famous composer, Felix Mendelssohn, and was a descendant of Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.

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