Matisse’s Heirs Claim Two Cut-Outs
The court of appeal in Versailles, France is passing judgment this month on a long-running and complex civil case over two cut-outs by Henri Matisse, worth a combined $4.5 million, that the artist’s heirs claim vanished—along with hundreds of other works—while in storage. The story begins in 2008, when the heirs of Pierre Matisse, the artist’s younger son, a renowned art dealer in New York, claimed ownership of White Palm on Red and Green Snail on Blue before filing a criminal complaint for fraud and detention of stolen goods in Paris on 15 January 2009 against persons unknown. The works had been withdrawn by Sotheby’s from its large-scale Impressionist and Modern sale in New York on 7 May 2008, for which they had been estimated at $1.2m to $1.6m and $2.5m to $3.5m respectively.
