Switzerland paid $1.6 million in legal fees despite winning a U.S. lawsuit over a drawing by Vincent van Gogh, which was donated by a businessman accused of exploiting the work’s former owner. The heir of Margaret Mauthner, a Jewish art collector who sold the drawing to Swiss businessman Oskar Reinhart in 1933 before fleeing Nazi Germany, brought the case against Switzerland in 2009.
The heir claimed that Reinhart, who gave the drawing Street in Saintes-Maries to Switzerland, had taken advantage of her grandmother’s unfortunate circumstance and forced her to sell the work for an unfair price. Switzerland maintained that Reinhart had paid a reasonable price for the drawing and ultimately won the case.
The work, which is valued at several million dollars, is currently on view in the Reinhart collection at the Winterthur Museum in northeastern Switzerland.
