After a long, fierce judicial battle, Dr. Léone-Noëlle Meyer surprised art circles Wednesday, and conceded a painting by Camille Pissarro, leaving it to the University of Oklahoma.
Pissarro, one of the most prominent Neo-Impressionists, was born in 1830, in the Antillean Creole Islands, which was a Danish colony. He lived in France, and held its citizenship until his death in Paris, in 1903.
Léone-Noëlle Meyer, 81, is a renowned pediatrician in France, and an art curator. She was adopted as a child by Raoul Meyer, founder of Gallery Lafayette in Paris, and she inherited his fortune after his death.
Raoul had managed to flee to the United States after hiding the paintings he owned in a large metal safe. Like many other rich French Jews, his family's properties were looted in 1941, during the organized campaign launched by the Nazi occupation forces. Many valuable artworks were taken to Germany at the time, and Pissarro's painting titled "Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep" was among them.
After the end of the war, and the liberation of Paris in 1945, Raoul returned to Europe, and sought to recover his properties. He managed to locate many of them, but the place of the disputed painting remained unknown.
"I decided to concede all my rights in the painting, including the right to property," Léone-Noëlle Meyer said in a statement, adding that she led a long battle in the United States, and France because her father worked hard to recover the painting throughout his life. But the artistic circles in France didn't understand the reasons behind the surprising decision, and many were disappointed as the disputed painting was supposed to be displayed at Musée d'Orsay for modern art, in Paris.
Pissarro drew the painting in 1886; it was owned by Raoul before it was looted from his house.
In 1951, the painting appeared in Switzerland, and he rushed to claim it. However, the Swiss courts rejected the lawsuit, saying the five-year term to claim looted properties ended. In 1957, the painting remerged in the United States, this time with a New York-based gallery owner involved in previous cases related to paintings stolen from Jewish houses.
The painting was also owned by a US couple from Oklahoma, who decided to donate their art collection, in 2000, to the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.
In 2012, Léone-Noëlle found a picture of the painting online, and went to courts to recover it. But the journey was long, and after years of legal disputes, the two parties agreed that the French pediatrician is the owner of the painting, but it shall be exchanged every three years between Paris and Oklahoma. The judge also forced the heiress to waive the painting before she dies to a decent art foundation that preserves valuable artworks.
The painting was set to be displayed first at the Musée d'Orsay, but its curators hid it, and refused the exchange between two continents.
The University of Oklahoma refused leaving the painting to Paris, and went to court. In February, an American judge requested Léone-Noëlle to drop the lawsuit, or to pay a $3 million fine. But she refused to back down.
The French court decided to put the painting under judicial custody. Then, Léone-Noëlle decided suddenly to concede the painting, which will be returned to the US in July. According to the heiress' lawyer, the University of Oklahoma can now do whatever it wants with the artwork.
