Heir seeks works in Norton Simon

A Connecticut woman, heir to a Dutch-Jewish art dealer, sued Tuesday in Los Angeles federal court to prove that she is the rightful owner of Nazi-looted 16th century depictions of Adam and Eve that have hung since 1976 in the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena, where their insurance value is pegged at $24 million.

In a dueling suit, the Norton Simon Art Foundation wants the same court to certify its ownership of the diptych that German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder painted on two wooden panels around 1530. One issue is whether “Adam” and “Eve” belonged to the Stroganoffs, aristocrats in Czarist Russia -- and if so, whether the Soviets’ seizure of their art historically and legally trumps the Nazis’ 1940 looting of the gallery of dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who bought the Cranachs from the Soviets in 1931.

Marei von Saher, Goudstikker’s daughter-in-law, contends that the diptych hung in a church in Kiev before the Soviets got it, and that it never belonged to the Stroganoffs. The Simon foundation, which bought the works from a Stroganoff heir for $800,000 in 1970 and 1971, begs to differ.

The foundation also argues that Dutch government decisions concerning the diptych’s ownership in past negotiations with Goudstikker and Stroganoff heirs should be binding in the U.S.