The estate of Oscar Stettiner, a Jewish gallery owner whose works of art were seized by the Nazis, has provided a New York court with fresh evidence that the Nahmad family of art dealers is the current owner of a Modigliani painting, Seated Man with Cane (1918), which the estate is claiming.
A 2011 case seeking the return of the canvas from the Nahmads faltered after the dealers said that the Modigliani was owned by a company called the International Art Center (IAC) and not by them. However, documents among the so-called Panama papers leak that were published in April reveal that the IAC was set up on behalf of the Nahmads and has always been controlled by the family.
Following these revelations the estate of Oscar Stettiner has “accelerated [its] efforts in court and started the discovery process”, a spokesperson says in an email to The Art Newspaper. The new documentation provided to the court includes a letter from Sotheby’s, which had offered the Modigliani for sale on behalf of the Nahmads in November 2008 (the painting didn’t sell).
In a letter to “Mr Nahmad” dated 11 February 2010, Lucian Simmons of Sotheby’s writes that he had recently been approached by James Palmer of the Mondex Corporation, an agency that “undertakes research for families who lost artworks in WWII” and which had been instructed by Oscar Stettiner’s heirs to advance a claim on the Modigliani.
“I have not and will not disclose your identity to him unless I am obligated to do so by order of the court,” Simmons wrote. Auction houses are bound by confidentiality agreements with their clients, in this case the Nahmads, and there is no suggestion that Sotheby’s did anything wrong.
