A Tragic Fate by Nicholas M. O'Donnell

Author:Nicholas M. O'Donnell [O’Donnell Nicholas M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634257336
Publisher: American Bar Association
Published: 2017-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Léone Meyer and the University of Oklahoma

A more recent example gives pause to the discouragement that many claimants have expressed, and rebuts the often cynical, hands-in-the-air assertion that litigation serves no purpose. Indeed, only after categorical refusal and litigation did the story find a resolution.

Léone Meyer is the daughter of Raoul Meyer and Yvonne Bader Meyer. Yvonne was the daughter of Théophile Bader, the founder of the Groupe Galeries Lafayette. The Meyers owned a painting by Camille Pissarro, La bergère rentrent des moutons. Sometime before 1940, the painting had been sold to Théophile, who then conveyed it to Yvonne. The Meyers were Jewish. After Germany invaded France in 1940, the two countries signed an armistice on June 22, 1940, and the so-called Vichy regime was created, in which Germany occupied part of France and a nominally independent but functionally servile French government administered the remainder of the country. As in other occupied countries, both the German occupiers and the Vichy government passed a series of laws designed to discriminate against Jews and deprive them of civic, political, and economic rights. Amidst this legislative activity, Raoul, Yvonne, and their families entrusted their art collections to the Bank Crédit Commercial de France in Mont-de-Marsan. Shortly thereafter, the German Financial Exchange Protection Commando, better known by its German name, Devisenschutzkommando (DSK), seized a collection of art registered to those same families from the Bank Crédit Commercial and transferred the collection to the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR); the ERR was the task force that oversaw the looting of many cultural objects in German-occupied areas. The ERR had a depot at the Jeu de Paume in the Louvre. The Pissarro entered the Jeu de Paume sometime around 1941 or thereafter and was assigned a code, Meyer 13.

After the war ended, the French government’s Commission de Récupération Artistique (CRA) was charged with researching artworks and collections that had been looted during the Vichy regime. Raoul submitted an inventory of his lost collection to the CRA, which included a work entitled, Petit tableau: la Bergère. Raoul recovered some works of art through the CRA, but not the painting. In addition, the French Office des biens et interêts privés (OBIP) was created in 1944 to gather works recovered from Germany but whose owners were unknown. Raoul also submitted claims to the OBIP.

Later, the French Ministry of Culture published its Registry of Assets Looted in France During the War of 1939–1945 (the Répertoire des Biens Spoliés en France Durant la Guerre de 1939–1945, or the “Répertoire”). The Pissarro is listed in the Répertoire. Pursuant to a July 8, 1946, tripartite agreement, the Répertoire was circulated amongst its signatories (France, the United States, and the United Kingdom), as well as countries that might have received looted art (including Switzerland).

Thereafter, in 1953, Raoul found the painting in Switzerland in the possession of Christoph Bernoulli. Bernoulli was listed on a 1946 “Index of enemy and collaborationist personnel involved in art looting recommended for exclusion from the United States,”129 compiled by the Art Looting Investigation Unit of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

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