An American appeals court has ruled that a Spanish museum can keep a painting stolen by the Nazis in 1939, rejecting a claim by a Jewish family to return it to them.

The decision poses another obstacle in American Jew David Cassirer’s two-decade-long campaign to return the painting to his family after his great-grandmother was forced to sell it to the Nazis in 1939. 

Cassier’s great-grandmother, Lilly Neubauer, was forced to sell the painting for 900 Reichmarks (around £200), which paid for her visa out of Germany. The work, Pissaro’s Rue Saint Honoré, apre midi, effet de pluie, is now worth over £20 million.

Evelio Acevedo, managing director of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, told the JC: “We welcome this court ruling…which ratifies the legitimate ownership of the work”. He described the Pissaro painting as the “legitimate property” of the museum – something which “had already been recgonised in previous rulings”.

Acevedo continued: “The good faith in the acquisition of this work by this institution is something that was proven from the first instance”.

The painting changed hands among private owners before ending up in Spain, and Lily Neubauer died without knowing what had happened to the family heirloom. Her grandson, Claude, to whom she left the rights to the Pissaro work, told the LA Times he was “in shock” when the painting resurfaced in 2000.

In 2005, Claude Cassirer filed a lawsuit to return the painting. When he died a few years ago, his son, David, took on the case.

Rue Saint Honoré is one of over 600,000 paintings stolen during the war, of which 100,000 remain missing.

Spain has been criticised for failing to fulfil its responsibilities to return stolen artwork. In 2018, Stuart E. Eizenstat, a State Department advisor and leading figure in the campaign to return stolen art, said the country had “taken no steps” to reunite stolen paintings with their rightful owners.

The decision made in California court this week determined that the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum was the rightful owner, after a conflict over whether to apply Spanish or Californian law. Under Spanish law, which was found to be appropriate, the Pissaro will stay in Madrid.

Consuelo Callahan, one of the judges on the case, said Spain should have voluntarily given up the painting, but that she could not force its return. “I wish that it were otherwise,” she wrote in her ruling.

The Cassirers told the Times they plan to pursue their case.