A Modern York Supreme Court judge has ordered that a Nazi-looted Modigliani linked to Panama Papers records be returned to the estate of its original owner, ending a legal odyssey that spanned more than eight decades and three continents.
The ruling by Judge Joel M. Cohen mandates the return of the 1918 oil painting, “Seated Man with a Cane,” to the heirs of Oscar Stettiner. Stettiner, a British-born Jewish art dealer based in Paris, saw his collection systematically dismantled by the Nazi regime during the German occupation of France in the 1940s.
The decision concludes an 11-year court battle initiated by Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci. The case became a landmark intersection of Holocaust-era restitution and modern financial transparency, as the court relied on leaked offshore documents to pierce a veil of corporate secrecy that had hidden the masterpiece for years.
Judge Cohen found that the painting was indeed the same work confiscated from Stettiner’s Paris gallery. In his judgment, he rejected the defense offered by David Nahmad, a Lebanese-born Jewish art dealer, and his holding company, International Art Center, S.A. The Nahmads, who purchased the work at auction in 1996, had argued that inconsistencies in the painting’s provenance created sufficient doubt to block the claim.
A Legacy of ‘Economic Aryanization’
The theft of “Seated Man with a Cane” was part of a broader, systematic effort by the Third Reich to strip Jewish citizens of their assets—a process known as “Economic Aryanization.” Stettiner, who operated a prominent antiques and art gallery in Paris during the 1930s, fled the city in 1939 as Nazi forces moved to occupy France.
Court records indicate that Stettiner had previously loaned the Modigliani to the Venice Biennale, a prestigious international art exhibition, nine years prior to the occupation. Though, by 1943, the Nazis had arrested and interned Stettiner. During his imprisonment, the regime appointed an administrator who sold off Stettiner’s property and art without his consent.
Following the liberation of France, Stettiner sought the return of his property. A French court ruling on April 21, 1945, and a subsequent judicial decision in 1946, both affirmed that the painting should be returned to him. However, by that time, the artwork had already entered the opaque world of the private art market and vanished. Stettiner died in 1948 without ever recovering the piece.
In his ruling, Judge Cohen noted that Stettiner “had a superior right of possession of the Painting prior to its unlawful seizure” and that he “never voluntarily relinquished it.” The judge dismissed the defendants’ arguments as “unsupported speculation of ‘possibilities’ which are insufficient to defeat summary judgment.”
The Panama Papers and the Swiss Freeport
For years, the painting remained hidden in a Swiss freeport—a high-security, tax-free warehouse where billionaires store art and valuables away from the eyes of customs officials and tax authorities. The Nahmads denied that they personally held possession of the work, instead attributing ownership to the International Art Center, S.A.
The deadlock was broken not by art historians, but by investigative journalists. Secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung as part of the Panama Papers investigation revealed the truth. The documents showed that International Art Center, S.A.—a shell company registered by the law firm Mossack Fonseca in Panama—had been controlled by the Nahmad family for more than 20 years.
This revelation proved that the Nahmads had used an offshore structure to obscure their connection to the looted work. When lawyers for Philippe Maestracci first contacted the Nahmad Gallery in New York to request a meeting and discuss the painting’s return, the gallery failed to respond, leading to the decade-long lawsuit supported by Mondex, a Canadian firm specializing in the recovery of stolen art.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1918 | Painting created by Amedeo Modigliani |
| 1939 | Oscar Stettiner flees Paris during Nazi occupation |
| 1943 | Stettiner interned. painting sold via Nazi administrator |
| 1946 | French court orders return of painting to Stettiner |
| 1996 | Painting purchased at auction by the Nahmads |
| 2016+ | Panama Papers reveal Nahmad control of holding company |
The Value of a Modigliani
The stakes of the legal battle were measured in the tens of millions of dollars. Amedeo Modigliani, the Italian artist known for his elongated portraits, died of tuberculosis in 1920, leaving behind a limited body of work that has become some of the most coveted in the art world.
The market for Modigliani’s work has reached astronomical heights. In 2018, one of his paintings fetched a record price of $170.4 million. “Seated Man with a Cane,” which depicts a dapper, mustachioed man resting his hands on a walking stick, is estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars.
The case highlights a persistent challenge in the art world: the ease with which looted works can be laundered through auction houses and hidden in offshore accounts. By linking the provenance of the art to the financial records of the Panama Papers, the court has set a precedent for using leaked financial data to resolve historical claims of theft.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice regarding art restitution or international law.
The next phase of the process will involve the physical transfer of the painting from its current location to the administrators of the Stettiner estate. Court filings are expected to follow regarding the logistics of the handover and any final accounting of the estate’s claims.
We invite readers to share their thoughts on the role of financial transparency in art restitution in the comments below.
