A Lawsuit Will Determine the Fate of 2 Picassos
You might begin by picturing a spring day in Berlin, two months after the rise of Adolf Hitler. It is late March 1933, and a man has called upon an art transporter, Gustav Knauer, to hire him for a job.
His name is Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a banker and scion of a wealthy Jewish family of philanthropists and financiers and patrons of the arts. At 58, and in failing health, Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is known throughout Berlin — indeed throughout all Europe — for his luminous collection of Impressionist and early Modern paintings that hang at his town house in the Alsenstrasse and at the family villa outside town.
The matter at hand on this day, March 23, concerns five Picassos that Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is sending to Switzerland. Mr. Knauer has arranged for them to be received by a Swiss dealer, and placed in private storage. There they will remain for an entire year, safely stowed, until the banker in Berlin decides to sell them, a decision that sets in motion a lawsuit on another continent not to be filed for another 74 years.
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His name is Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a banker and scion of a wealthy Jewish family of philanthropists and financiers and patrons of the arts. At 58, and in failing health, Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is known throughout Berlin — indeed throughout all Europe — for his luminous collection of Impressionist and early Modern paintings that hang at his town house in the Alsenstrasse and at the family villa outside town.
The matter at hand on this day, March 23, concerns five Picassos that Herr Mendelssohn-Bartholdy is sending to Switzerland. Mr. Knauer has arranged for them to be received by a Swiss dealer, and placed in private storage. There they will remain for an entire year, safely stowed, until the banker in Berlin decides to sell them, a decision that sets in motion a lawsuit on another continent not to be filed for another 74 years.