In a 9-2 en banc ruling Thursday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision allowing a lawsuit over a Camille Pissarro masterpiece confiscated from its owner by a Nazi official in 1939 to proceed against Spain and the state art foundation now in possession of the painting.
The suit was filed in 2005 in the Central District of California by Claude Cassirer, an American whose Jewish grandmother sold the Impressionist painting — titled “Rue Saint-Honore, Apres Midi, Effet de Pluie” and currently valued at $20 million, according to The Associated Press — under duress for $360 in exchange for being allowed by the Nazis to leave Berlin safely.
