California Attorney General Rob Bonta has re-entered the long-running legal battle over a Camille Pissarro painting, *Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain* (1897), which was sold under duress by Lilly Cassirer Neubauer to a Nazi appraiser in 1939 for 900 Reichsmarks. The painting is now held by the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and the Cassirer family has sought its return for decades. A new California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in September allows exceptions for property taken as a result of political persecution, and Bonta is now defending the state's authority to compel the return of stolen art to victims connected to California.
This case matters because it tests the limits of U.S. state law in compelling foreign museums to return Nazi-looted art, a growing area of restitution law. The painting, valued in the tens of millions, has been the subject of legal actions since 2000, with prior rulings both supporting and rejecting California's jurisdiction. The outcome could set a precedent for how American courts handle claims against foreign institutions holding art acquired during the Nazi era, affecting dozens of similar restitution cases worldwide.