A U.S. appeals court ruled that the actress Elizabeth Taylor can keep a Van Gogh painting that may have been illegally seized by the Nazis. The court ruled last Friday that the family of the German Jewish woman who owned the painting had waited too long to ask for it back, Reuters reported. “This affirms my great belief in the American judicial process; I am very grateful,” Taylor said in a statement. “It’s wonderful to have Monsieur Vincent Van Gogh in my living room.” Taylor, 75, bought the 1889 painting “View of the Asylum and Chapel at Saint-Remy” at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 1963 for 92,000 British pounds, or about $257,000 at the time. Descendants of Margarete Mauthner sued Taylor in 2004, claiming the Nazis had forced the sale of the painting under duress.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
