The FBI has found a small pastel drawing by Claude Monet, which was confiscated by Nazis during World War II. The FBI will return the painting to the owners, as reported by Times-Picayune last week.
Monet’s “Bord de Mer” is currently in storage at the New Orleans Field Office of the FBI, having been seized last June. The artwork was most recently sold in 2019 by M.S. Rau, an antiquities dealer in New Orleans, to Bridget Vita and her late husband, Kevin Schlamp, who passed away in March. Following concerns about its provenance, the FBI confiscated the artwork for further investigation.
The artwork was initially acquired by Adalbert and Hilda Parlagi in April 1936 and was kept at their residence in Vienna, Austria. Following Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938, the Parlagi family, along with their two children, were compelled to flee to Switzerland and later to London.
Their possessions, including the painting, were stored in a warehouse belonging to a shipping company in Vienna. Despite their intentions to retrieve their belongings after the war, German authorities seized the property in 1940. Subsequently, the painting was auctioned by the Dorotheum auction house in the following year, and it was eventually acquired by another auction house owned by Adolf Weinmüller, a member of the Nazi Party notorious for trafficking looted art.
Following the war’s conclusion, the Parlagi family and their heirs sought the return of the artwork from both the German and Austrian governments, but their efforts were unsuccessful. In 2016, the painting was included in an exhibition in Ornans, France, on loan from the Galerie Helene Bailly in Paris. The following year, Rau purchased it from the Galerie Helene Bailly, who subsequently sold it on, as outlined in a lawsuit filed by the federal government with the US District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana last week.
According to court documents, Bridget Vita and Kevin Schlamp waived their rights to the painting at the time of the FBI seizure. The federal government has petitioned the court to determine the rightful owner of the artwork.
The claimants to the property, Françoise Parlagi and Helen Lowe, along with other parties, are the grandchildren and only living heirs of the Parlagis.
While the court’s decision is pending, Rau informed the Times-Picayune that he anticipates resolving the lawsuit without conflict. He stated, “All of the parties have reached an amicable agreement to happily return the pastel to its rightful heirs in light of the work’s provenance, which was of course completely unknown to all of the trading parties.”
