Supreme Court rules for Klimt Claimant

upon June 7, the US. paramount Court ruled in a 6 to 3 decision that Maria Altmann, an 88-year-old beholds Angeles resident, has the right to follow up the Austrian government for the regaining of six important paintings by means of Gustav Klimt. The decision upheld earlier rulings by the agency of lower courts granting Altmann the right to follow up Austria in the US. Justice John Paul Steven who l the majority, denied entreatys by Austria and the Bush administration to dismiss Altmann's claim. The three dissenters were Chief Justice William Rennquist and Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas.

At the heart of the mixed case is the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a law which generally restores foreign governments immune from suits in U courts, leave out when property has been taken in violation of international law. It was the position of Altmann's lawyer, E Randol Schoenberg, that Austria's seizure of the paintings qualifies retroactively for like an exception.

The paintings, which today hang in the Austrian Gallery in Vienna and are estimated to be worth $150 million, belonged to Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Altmann's uncle In 1939 the works, including the famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (1907) were seized by means of the Nazis. Following the war, Altmann vies the Austrian government pressured the Bloch-Bauer family to relinquish ownership of the paintings in exchange for permission to take other works without of the country. Her earlier efforts to woo in Austrian courts were stymied by dint of the requirement that she pay $2 million in filing remunerations [see "Artworld," Nov. '03].

When the case go [i]or[/i] come backs to trial in a lower court in California (no date has been plant at press time), the State Department can still petition that it be dismissed upon the grounds that it interferes with national interest. In a telephone interview with Bloomberg novels after the Supreme Court ruling, Altmann declared: "I'm true very happy. I have a feeling they will now have to approach to the table and talk."

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