Seated Man with a Cane: a ruling Nahmad contests

In 1939, the Paris art dealer Oscar Stettiner, who was Jewish, left the city. The Art Newspaper reports that the collection he left behind was seized and resold. The New York Times News Service says one painting, a 1918 Modigliani portrait of a seated chocolate merchant in a hat and tie, was confiscated from his Paris shop during the German occupation.

Stettiner went to court in France in 1946 to get it back. The reports differ on the result: one says he won an order for its return, the other that the painting could not be found. Both agree it had already been sold on. He died in 1948. The Art Newspaper adds that a buyer named Jean Van der Klip acquired it in 1944, and that his heirs put it up for sale about fifty years later.

In 1996 a company linked to the family of the dealer David Nahmad bought the work at Christie’s. The press reports say it has been kept in storage in Switzerland ever since.

Stettiner’s grandson, Philippe Maestracci, sued in New York in 2015 together with Mondex, a firm that recovers looted art. In 2017 an appeals court allowed the claim to go forward. The litigation lasted eleven years in all.

On 3 April 2026, Justice Joel M. Cohen of the New York Supreme Court ruled for the estate. The reports say he found it was the same painting, that Stettiner owned it or had a better right to it, and that he never gave it up willingly. He called the provenance printed for the 1996 sale wrong, “by design or inadvertence”, but did not hold Nahmad responsible for misleading the Stettiner family. In June, Artlyst reported an order to return the painting within 30 days.

Nahmad disputes the result. His side says this is not the painting Stettiner owned, and cites two eyewitnesses who describe a smaller work, with no seated man and no cane. He says he bought it in good faith and has said he will appeal. The reports do not say whether the return order has been paused or the appeal decided. Until it is, ownership is not settled.