Restituted art: ‘Seated Man With a Cane’ returns home

Law360 Canada (April 8, 2026, 3:22 PM EDT) --

James Palmer

The Nahmad family is one of the leading collectors of artworks in the world and are said to have amassed approximately 4,000 paintings worth about $4 billion, most of which I understand is stored in the Geneva Freeport in Switzerland. The patriarch of the family is David Nahmad, while his son Helly runs the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York. Other members of the family are involved in different galleries in London and New York.

In 2011, we reached out to the Helly Nahmad Gallery to return Seated Man With a Cane (Homme assis avec une canne) (1918) by Amedeo Modigliani to Oscar Stettiner’s grandson (Philippe Maestracci v. Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc., 2011, United States District Court for the Southern District of New York). Naturally, we never dreamed that we’d still be pursuing it 15 years later.

Unlike most countries in Europe where legal claims are more private, in the United States and Canada most high-profile claims are made public within minutes of being filed with the court. Some lawyers choose to be proactive with the media to ensure that they are able to tell their side of the story. However, working with the media can be a two-edged sword.

What set the Maestracci claim apart from many other restitution claims was the fact that in 2016 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) broke the news about the Panama Papers and released approximately 11.5 million secret documents relating to tax havens and tax evaders, which included information about Seated Man With a Cane. This led to the publication of several articles about the Nahmad family.

In July 2016, Artnet magazine published a story with the headline Nahmads Fire Back at ‘Art-World Ambulance Chaser’ Over Looted Art Claim. Was David Nahmad convinced that Mondex Corporation was behind the many ICIJ stories about his family and the claim for this Modigliani painting? It certainly seemed so to me as three highly critical articles about Mondex suddenly appeared in quick succession in the New York Post, Le Temps (Switzerland) and Le Journal des Arts (France). Soon after, I met the director of a media relations company in Paris who claimed to work for Mr. Nahmad and who led me to believe that he had arranged for the publication of these three articles.

All three articles were very surprising in their allegations, and one suggested that we do not do our research, while conversely in Avni v. Sotheby’s (2024), the judge complimented our company for the quality of our research.

Another article suggested that we use “Wild West techniques” without defining what this meant, while the reality is that we spend countless hours in archives, libraries and online, patiently and methodically analyzing evidence.

Regardless, none of this is really very important — what is important is the overwhelming evidence that we presented in court, and the tremendous joy that the family of Oscar Stettiner now share with us at the court’s decision that Seated Man With a Cane should now be returned to Oscar’s family, from whom it was looted almost a century ago.

Interestingly, this case was the first to apply the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act’s extension of the statute of limitations in re Estate of Stettiner, 148 A.D.3d 184, 186-87 (1st Dept. 2017) and Maestracci v. Helly Nahmad Gallery, 155 A.D.3d 401, 404 (1st Dept. 2017), which has been followed in later decisions of the New York courts, e.g., Reif v. Nagy, 175 A.D.3d 107.

This is also the first case to apply the American Alliance of Museums Guide to Provenance Research as a guidepost for provenance research requirements of a private art collector. Specifically, a collector at a museum “should employ the assistance of established archives, databases, art dealers, auction house, donors, scholars and researchers who may be able to provide Nazi-era provenance information.” See, Matter of Art Inst. Of Chicago, 85 Misc. 3d 1265(A) previously applying those standards to an AAM member museum. David Nahmad argued because he was a “mere” private collector and not a museum that the guidelines should not apply to him. The court summarily rejected that argument, and courts considering such arguments from private holders of looted art now have precedent to apply the AAM guidelines to private collectors of looted art.

The court also rejected the notion that a bill of sale or receipt is necessary to a finding of ownership. Rather, the decision was driven by an acceptance of our factual showing based on the exhaustive research and work completed in this matter.

After close to 17 years of struggling for this justice and closure, we are grateful to all the people who have made this possible: the many lawyers involved and the team of researchers who often had to work weekends and late into the evening to achieve what we saw as our duty and our honour.

James Palmer established Mondex Corporation in 1993. Driven to do work of meaning, in 1998, encouraged by the Washington Principles, James worked to develop Mondex’s expertise to include the restitution of looted art and other cultural property. Since then, Mondex has cooperated with ministries of culture in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Poland to help shape their restitution policies. James completed his studies at the Canadian universities of York, Laurentian and Western, as well as the University of Nice in France and Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. He holds an honours BA and an MBA, and currently acts as a consultant for Mondex.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

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