Metropolitan Museum of Art Keeps Picasso Despite Nazi Art Claim

The Metropolitan Museum of Art can keep the Pablo Picasso painting “The Actor,” the Second Circuit said June 25.

A claim by an heir of Paul and Alice Leffmann that the Jewish couple was under duress when they sold the piece to a private French art dealer to escape the clutches of the Nazis in 1938 is invalid under the doctrine of laches, the opinion by Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann said.

Laches is an equitable defense that allowed the museum to show the Leffmanns and their heirs slept on their rights and that it would be prejudiced by the ...