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High Court Lets Liz's Van Gogh Hang

Mon., Oct. 29, 2007 7:44 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

Elizabeth Taylor's art collection remains intact.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the violet-eyed actress' favor Monday, refusing to reconsider a lawsuit brought by four people who claim that their Jewish ancestor was forced to sell a Vincent van Gogh painting, which is now in Taylor's possession, to her oppressors before fleeing Nazi Germany for South Africa in 1939.

While the millions of dollars' worth of artwork, jewelry and countless other possessions either stolen or forcibly bought—at a discount—by the Third Reich during World War II continues to generate headlines, lawsuits and reparation policy, Taylor's lawyers argued that this particular painting did not pass through Nazi hands.

Instead, Taylor said, van Gogh's View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy—painted less than a year before his suicide and said to be worth close to $15 million—was sold through two reputable Jewish art dealers before being bought by a Jewish collector living in Argentina who had escaped Nazi tyranny in 1933.

The two-time Oscar winner's father bought it for her at a Sotheby's auction in London in 1963 for the bargain price of 92,000 pounds, or, about $257,600. When the lawsuit was filed, the van Gogh was hanging in Taylor's Bel Air mansion.

Four relatives of Margarete Mauthner sued Taylor in October 2004, alleging that the Butterfield 8 star and her father had been "negligent and careless" for not thoroughly investigating the painting's provenance. The plaintiffs said that, because their forebear had been forced to sell the work under duress, it should be returned to them under the auspices of the 1998 U.S. Holocaust Victims Redress Act.

U.S. District Judge Gary Kausner sided with Taylor in 2005, ruling that Mauthner's descendants had waited too long to file suit and therefore had not stated a valid ownership claim. An appeals court upheld the dismissal, ruling that the 1998 legislation did not allow individuals the right to sue private collectors.

The Holocaust Victims act is for the use of U.S. and foreign governments working to return artworks stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said.

The family, which said that it didn't know it had any claim at all to View of the Asylum until 2001, was also looking to recover the painting via California state law, but Kausner stated that the statute of limitation in such cases is only three years and that a newer law freezing the statute until the stolen property can be located didn't apply.

"There is a strong recent trend toward permitting claimants of Holocaust-era artwork to seek to recover them, regardless of the statue of limitations," the plaintiffs' attorney said in arguing his case before the high court. "The issue is of pressing importance, given the advanced age of Holocaust survivors and their heirs."

Taylors' attorneys suggested that the opposing side should take its objections to the 1998 law up with Congress.