(Q104526075)
Statements
Jewish Collector's Heir Loses Claim to Painting (English)
Annie Youderian
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15 October 2010
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Courthouse News 15 October 2010By Annie Youderian (CN) - Boston's Museum of Fine Arts can keep a valuable oil painting allegedly sold under Nazi duress during World War II, the 1st Circuit ruled, saying the sole heir to a Jewish art collector waited too long to claim it. The federal appeals court ruled Claudia Seger-Thomschitz, sole heir to the Austrian-Jewish art collector Oskar Reichel, should have asserted her claim to "Two Nudes (Lovers)" by Austrian expressionist Oskar Kokoschka well before 2008.Seger-Thomschitz claimed she was the rightful owner of the painting, because Dr. Reichel had been forced to sell it after Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938.The museum argued that the original transaction was valid, and that Seger-Thomschitz's claim to the painting is barred by the three-year statute of limitations in Massachusetts. (English)
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The museum filed an action in Federal Court, seeking a declaration that it could keep the painting.Seger-Thomschitz countersued for conversion of property and other state-law torts.The 1st Circuit upheld a federal judge's ruling that the counterclaims are barred by Massachusetts' three-year statute of limitations. (English)
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During the war, Dr. Reichel and his wife, Malvine, were forced to close their business and give up their family home and another property. Their oldest son was deported to Poland, where he was killed, and Malvine was sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943. Dr. Reichel died of natural causes that same year. (English)