Heirs of Jewish Banker Sue Sotheby's Over Pissarro Sale

Seven heirs of the Jewish banker Salomon Flavian have taken Sotheby's to court in Paris over the auction house's 2024 sale of a Camille Pissarro painting they say was looted by the Nazis.

The canvas at the center of the case is Pissarro's Darse de pêche et bassin Duquesne, Dieppe, après-midi ensoleillée (Fishing dock and Duquesne basin, Dieppe, sunny afternoon), painted in 1902. It depicts the port city of Dieppe in western France.

Sotheby's London sold the painting in 2024 for £1.2 million ($1.5 million at the time). The house stated that the work was offered "pursuant to a settlement between the current owner and heirs of Salomon Flavian," whose collection the Nazis seized in Paris in 1941, according to The Art Newspaper (TAN).

Sotheby's lawyers argued in court that the heirs' consent was obtained through Mondex Corporation, a firm specializing in the recovery of art and other assets looted during World War II. But the seven plaintiffs told the court on September 18 that only two relatives, Gilles and Nicholas Flavian, had signed the agreement — and that the rest of the family had never been consulted.

The excluded heirs later learned the terms of the deal. In an October 2024 letter from Mondex, reviewed by TAN, the company said it had accepted an 8% share of the net sale price in the non-signing heirs' name "in exchange for their cooperation." The two heirs who signed the contract received a 16% commission, according to an account statement accompanying the letter.

The provenance recorded by Sotheby's traces the painting to the Paris dealer Paul Rosenberg by 1937 and then to the London dealer Edward Le Bas by 1939. The work has been exhibited at the Tate in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Sotheby's sale materials noted that the canvas had been registered in a repertory of looted art released by the French government in 1947, TAN reports. Melina Wolman, an attorney for Mondex, told the court that the firm maintains the painting was never actually looted. A provenance researcher hired by the sellers, she said, found that the painting did not appear on a Nazi-maintained list of confiscated works. The plaintiffs counter that the Nazis' lists were often modified at the request of unscrupulous dealers.

Wolman told the court that her client was the "victim of a relentless harassment." Mondex did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Sotheby's lawyer also argued that the Paris court lacks jurisdiction over a sale conducted in London between clients with no connection to France, TAN reports. Sotheby's was unable to provide comment before publication.

The court is expected to deliver its verdict on November 5 — a ruling that will test whether auction houses can rely on partial family settlements when consigning works with contested wartime histories.