It is a legal
battle that drags up Soviet nationalization policies, allegations of black
market dealings and international property rights. Now, it could also involve
the Supreme Court.
The claim has been brought by the heir to one of
pre-revolutionary Russia’s greatest art collectors. At the heart of the legal
battle is Vincent van Gogh’s “The Night Café,” a vibrant depiction of vagrants
and prostitutes killing time in a French dive bar. The painting, reportedly
valued at $200 million, now hangs in the Yale University Art Gallery. But until
1918, it belonged to the private collection of wealthy Muscovite Ivan Morozov.
Morozov’s great-grandson Pierre Konowaloff has spent
years challenging Yale University’s title to the masterpiece, but to no avail.
Now, armed with a revised legal theory that he believes could undermine the
legality of the original sale, Konowaloff is taking his last stand before
America’s highest court.
The heir still has an uphill battle to fight. But even
if the Supreme Court were to accept Konowaloff’s claim and rule in his favor, a
happy ending would not be guaranteed, as Russia could then potentially assert
its own right to the painting.
The
Collection of Ivan Morozov
Ivan Morozov was a wealthy Russian textile
merchant with a private art collection of legendary repute.
The Morozov collection contained works of Cezanne, van Gogh, Picasso,
Degas, and Gauguin, among many others.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917,
Vladimir Lenin's newly-formed government turned its attention
to private property. In 1918, Morozov's art collection was singled
out for nationalization, and around this time the collection was
transferred to state ownership.
Morozov was reputedly heartbroken by this loss,
and was granted permission to leave Russia in 1919. He died two
years later, at the age of 49, leaving behind a wife
and daughter. Both
ultimately settled in Paris.
Following Morozov's departure from Russia, his
home was converted into an art museum. Within a few years,
the collection was merged with the similarly impressive collection
of Sergei Shchukin, another wealthy industrialist.
The joint collection in Morozov's home
became known as the Museum of Modern Western Art (MOMWA),
and would exist until 1948, when it was shut down by the Soviet
authorities over accusations of "formalism" and "art
that was anti-people in nature."
Slipping
Across the Border
Following MOMWA's closure, the works
from the Morozov and Shchukin collections were divvied up between
Moscow's Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and St. Petersburg's Hermitage
State Museum.
While the bulk of the Morozov
and Shchukin collections remain in the Pushkin and the Hermitage
today, a handful of the paintings were sold to wealthy western collectors
in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The driving force behind
these sales was the state of Soviet hard currency reserves
at the time.
Irina
Nikiforova, head of the Pushkin's European and American arts
department of the 19th and 20th centuries, confirmed to The
Moscow Times that a list of 59 works was drawn up from the MOMWA
collection to be considered for sale abroad. That list included
"The Night Café."
According to the court documents currently
awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court's consideration, "The Night
Café" was displayed in Russia until 1933. It was acquired that same
year by Stephen C. Clark, heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune
and a preeminent art collector, who had also acquired Paul Cézanne's
"Madame Cézanne in the Conservatory" from Morozov's
collection.
Upon his death in 1960, Clark bequeathed
the van Gogh to Yale and the Cezanne to the Metropolitan
Museum of Art (the Met) in New York.
Legal
Battle
Konowaloff first learned about the art collection
from his grandmother, Morozov's daughter, when he was 18 years old. He
said that neither his parents nor his grandparents ever considered fighting
to recover a portion of the Morozov collection, explaining that
they wished to leave the painful memories of the past behind.
Over 2008 and 2009, Konowaloff initiated
proceedings against the Met over the Cézanne piece, and became
involved in proceedings against Yale over the van Gogh.
In both instances, courts asserted that his claim
was barred by the act of state doctrine, which prevents U.S. courts
from second-guessing the policies of sovereign states. They did
so despite the fact that when Morozov's collection was nationalized
in 1918, the U.S. government did not actually recognize Lenin's
government.
Washington's 1933 recognition of the Soviet government
prevented U.S. courts from ruling on its legitimacy, it was ruled.
Konowaloff lost his appeal of the Met case
on the same basis.
But ahead of his appeal of the Yale case,
Morozov decided to change his legal strategy. He abandoned any challenge to the
validity of the Bolshevik expropriations, arguing instead that
the sale of the van Gogh painting was in itself illicit. He
argued that New York's Knoedler Art Gallery had "surreptitiously arranged
for [Clark] to acquire 'The Night Café' illegally through
the Matthiesen Gallery in Berlin."
Konowaloff
thus asserted that Yale's ownership claim was "derived from a
theft."
It was a claim supported by extensive
archival research conducted by Knowaloff's legal team, which had found there
was no documentation related to the painting's actual sale in Russia.
This was despite the fact that a system existed to ensure that
the export of works of art received proper approval. Konowaloff
argued that the absence of such record indicated that the sale
had been illegal, and thus that Clark had no lawful title to the
painting.
Konowaloff's attorney Allan Gerson told
The Moscow Times he "presumed" "The Night Cafe" had
been officially designated for sale before shipment, but that
the sale itself was different.
"In every major art sale to the West,
the Soviet system of redundancy required a record
of approval and here there was no signed approval," he said.
"There is at least a prima facie case that sale was illegal,
and this is the subject of a trial that Yale is trying
to prevent through an improper invocation of the act
of state doctrine."
Yale has maintained that it has never had reason to
question the legitimacy of Clark's bequest. When asked for information
regarding the museum's review process prior to accepting the painting, Yale
refrained from commenting.
Ultimately, the appellate court sided with Yale,
concluding that by abandoning his challenge to the Bolshevik
expropriations, Konowaloff had "accepted the validity of the
1918 expropriation and thus admitted any legal claim or interest he has
in the painting was extinguished at that."
Konowaloff has since appealed to the U.S. Supreme
Court to allow him to challenge the legality of Clark's
purchase of the painting without invoking the act of state
doctrine. By focusing on the sale, and not on the
expropriations, Konowaloff aimed to assert that he had better title
to the painting than Yale.
Will
Russia Step In?
There is a third party in the affair:
Russia. Were the U.S. courts to rule that Clark's initial purchase
of the painting was illegal, Russia could potentially be in a
position to assert its own ownership rights.
For its part, the Pushkin Museum, which
houses much of the Morozov collection, says it has "accepted"
the loss of the masterpieces shipped abroad in the early years
of the Soviet Union. Their withdrawal from the museum was "a
truly dramatic event … a loss that it is impossible to come
to terms with," says Nikiforova.
The museum took seriously its duty
to preserve the memories of Morozov and Shchukin: "We,
the custodians of the collections, understand our obligations
to the collectors," she said. "These are not lofty words; this
is sincere admiration. Of course, we must preserve their memory."
Prior to stepping down as director of the
Pushkin Museum in 2013, Irina Antonova championed the resurrection
of the MOMWA, expressing a willingness to hand over
the Pushkin's library of paintings from the two collections
in order to make her vision a reality. Ultimately,
the museum would never materialize.
Nikiforova said Antonova was not motivated by any
desire to assert a claim to pieces of the Morozov
collection at the Hermitage or abroad. "The former director's main
message to the authorities … was that it was time to recognize [the
deeds of the government in 1918] and rebuild what had been
destroyed — it would be a just and noble cause."
Meanwhile, Konowaloff says he remains determined
to right what he believes to be a historic wrong.
"I am fighting for the memory of my
great-grandfather," Konowaloff said in a phone interview
from Paris. "I want 'The Night Café' returned to its rightful
place, because I know just how much my great-grandfather missed his
collection."
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