Camille Pissarro’’s painting Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain, 1897, hung in the parlor of the Cassirer family home in Germany before the Nazis seized it in 1939. (Courtesy photo)
In a trial more than a decade in the making, lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner and Nixon Peabody are set to square off starting Dec. 4 in a Los Angeles federal courtroom for three days to decide the fate of a Nazi-looted painting by French impressionist Camille Pissarro.
A Boies Schiller team led by David Boies himself and Miami-based partner Stephen Zack will make the case that the descendants of Lilly Cassirer Neubauer are the rightful owners of Pissarro’s “Rue Saint-Honoré, après-midi, effet de pluie.” Neubauer, the great-grandmother of the Cassirer plaintiffs, lost the painting in 1939 after a Nazi-appointed art dealer seized it to conduct an appraisal and valued it at the modern equivalent of $360. The masterpiece since has been appraised at more than $30 million.
Camille Pissarro’s painting Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon. Effect of Rain, 1897. (1976.74), at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.
