A federal judge in Los Angeles has declined to order the return of an Impressionist painting to the relatives of a Jewish woman who was forced to sell the work for $360 to a Nazi art appraiser in 1939.
The ruling came after a decade-long dispute over ownership of the 1897 canvas, “Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie,” a Paris street scene by Pissarro, which is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. The judge, John F. Walter of United States District Court, rejected a claim by relatives of the woman, Lilly Cassirer, who sued the museum and Spain seeking to have the painting turned over to them or to be awarded damages.
