Helly Nahmad Gallery Sued Over Allegedly Nazi-Looted Modigliani

From ArtInfo: Helly Nahmad Gallery Sued Over Allegedly Nazi-Looted Modigliani
The grandson of Jewish art dealer Oscar Stettiner has filed suit against New York’s Helly Nahmad Gallery over the rightful ownership of a painting by Amedeo Modigliani, according to Courthouse News. Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci, alleges the Nazis left the painting, “Seated Man With a Cane” (1918), in the care of a man named Marcel Philippon in 1939 after the Jewish art dealer fled France in fear of persecution. Maestracci, Stettiner’s sole living heir, argues the painting was sold under duress. He describes his suit against Helly Nahmad as part of a “reasonable and diligent” effort to void unauthorized sales of art works that belonged to his grandfather, who died in 1948.

According to Maestracci, the sale of the Modigliani painting stemmed from a “practice and policy of despoiling Jewish families of property located in the occupied zone by forced sales.” He first discovered the painting in a Sotheby’s catalogue in 2008, where it was consigned for sale by the Helly Nahmad Gallery.