Editing Marc Chagall (section)

== Nazi-loot and restitution cases ==
The earliest court case in the United States related to Nazi-looted art involved a painting by Chagall, called variously ''L'Echelle de Jacob'' or ''Le Paysan et l'Echelle'' or ''The Peasant and the Ladder'' or ''Jacob's Ladder,'' which had been seized by the [[Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce|Einsatzstab Rosenberg]] (ERR) Nazi looting organisation from the Menzel apartment in [[Brussels]] in 1941 after the Jewish family fled the Nazis''.'' In 1969 the widow Erna Menzel sued the US art collector Albert A. List, who had bought the painting from Perls Galleries in New York in 1955. In [[Menzel v. List|Menzel v List]], the court awarded the Chagall painting to Menzel and ordered [[Klaus Perls]] to pay List the appreciated value of the painting.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Malaro |first1=Marie C. |title=A legal primer on managing museum collections |last2=DeAngelis |first2=Ildiko Pogány |date=2012 |publisher=Smithsonian Books |isbn=978-1-58834-322-2 |edition=3rd |location=Washington, DC}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Menzel v List. |url=https://www.uniset.ca/other/cs3/298NYS2d979.html |quote=24 N.Y.2d 91, 246 N.E.2d 742, 298 N.Y.S.2d 979, 6 UCC Rep.Serv. 330vErna Menzel, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Albert A. List, Defendant-Appellant, and Third-Party Plaintiff-Respondent.vKlaus G. Perls et al., Doing Business under the Name of Perls Galleries, Third-Party Defendants-Appellants.vCourt of Appeals of New York. Argued January 7, 1969; Decided February 26, 1969.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-03-20 |title=Owner of Chagall Painting Looted by Nazis Wins It Back in U.S. Court |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/owner-of-chagall-painting-looted-by-nazis-wins-it-back-in-u-s-court |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Institution |first=Smithsonian |title=Methodologies and Resources: Perls Galleries records, 1937-1997 |url=https://www.si.edu/spotlight/a-guide-to-provenance-research-at-the-archives-of-american-art/methodologies-and-resources-perls-galleries-records-1937-1997 |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=Smithsonian Institution |language=en |quote=Klaus was named as a third-party defendant in the 1969 World War II looted art case Menzel v. List. When Erna Menzel sued Albert List for ownership of a Chagall painting confiscated from Menzel by the Nazis, List in turn sued Perls, who had sold him the painting in 1955, having purchased it himself from an art dealer in Paris. The court awarded the Chagall painting to Menzel and ordered Perls to pay List the appreciated value of the painting}}</ref>

In 2013, previously unknown works by Chagall were discovered in the stash of artworks hidden away by the son of one of Hitler's art dealers, Hildebrand Gurlitt.<ref>{{Cite web|first=Bryony|last=Jones|title=Unknown Matisse, Chagall and Dix artworks found in Nazi-looted haul|url=https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/05/world/europe/unknown-artworks-found-in-nazi-haul/index.html|access-date=12 March 2021|website=CNN|date=5 November 2013}}</ref> Chagall's ''Allegorical Scene'' was identified as having come from the collection of Savely Blumestein.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chagall work in German art trove 'was Nazi-looted' |url=https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=QE4JH1869011 |access-date=2024-11-21 |website=www.lootedart.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Provenienzbericht zu Unbekannt, Scène allégorique avec un couple s’embrassant / Allegorische Szene mit Liebespaar, ehemalige Lost Art-ID: 477889 {{!}} Proveana |url=https://www.proveana.de/en/project/provenienzbericht-zu-unbekannt-scene-allegorique-avec-un-couple-sembrassant-allegorische |access-date=2024-11-21 |website=www.proveana.de}}</ref>

In 2022 France restituted ''The Father (Le Père)'' to the heirs of David Cender, a Polish-Jewish violin maker and luthier who survived Auschwitz where his wife and daughter were killed.  According to the French culture ministry, Chagall had repurchased his own painting after the war not knowing its provenance, before it was donated to the French national collections in 1988.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chagall painting stolen by Nazis to be auctioned in New York |url=https://lootedart.com/news.php?r=VOLTGN711591 |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=lootedart.com |quote=The 1911 oil on canvas, "The Father," set for auction on November 15, was purchased in 1928 by a Polish-Jewish violin maker, David Cender, who lost his possessions when he was forced to move to the Lodz ghetto. Deported to Auschwitz, where his wife and daughter were killed, the violin maker survived and moved to France in 1958, where he died in 1966 without regaining possession of the painting -- now estimated to be worth $6 million to $8 million.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |publisher=The Jewish Museum |date=2023-02-16 |title=The Journey of Marc Chagall's Painting of His Father |url=https://stories.thejewishmuseum.org/the-journey-of-marc-chagalls-painting-of-his-father-ed3b3f2eec42 |access-date=2024-02-05 |website= |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Ben-David |first=Daniel |title=The miraculous story of the Chagall that was lost and found and lost again |url=https://www.thejc.com/life-and-culture/the-miraculous-story-of-the-chagall-that-was-lost-and-found-and-lost-again-lx0t4rjt |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=www.thejc.com |language=en}}</ref>

In February 2024, the ''New York Times'' reported that the [[Museum of Modern Art]] in New York (MoMa) had secretly restituted Chagall's ''[[:fr:Au-dessus_de_Vitebsk|Over Vitebsk]]'' to the heirs of Franz Matthiesen in 2021, and that the restitution involved a $4 million payment to the museum. The painting had passed through the Nazi dealer Kurt Feldhausser and the Wehye Gallery and its provenance was disputed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Villa |first=Angelica |date=2024-02-12 |title=MoMA Returned Valuable Chagall Painting with Disputed Provenance in 2021 |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/moma-returned-chagall-painting-disputed-provenance-1234696002/ |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=ARTnews.com |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Bowley |first=Graham |date=2024-02-12 |title=Quietly, After a $4 Million Fee, MoMA Returns a Chagall With a Nazi Taint |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/arts/chagall-moma-return-over-vitebsk.html |access-date=2024-02-13 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=» Work Of Art » Over Vitebsk |url=https://www.matthiesengallery.com/work_of_art/over-vitebsk |access-date=2024-02-13 |website=www.matthiesengallery.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-06-11 |title=Marc Chagall. Over Vitebsk. 1915-20 (after a painting of 1914) {{!}} MoMA |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79370 |access-date=2024-02-13 |archive-date=11 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200611083228/https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79370 |url-status=bot: unknown }}</ref>