Portable Altar of Countess Gertrude, shortly after 1038, from the Guelph Treasure that was on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo: Daderot via Wikimedia Commons

The United States Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month against the heirs of Jewish art dealers by upholding a previous decision that they do not have the right to have their claim against the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) regarding a collection of artifacts called the Guleph Treasure, The Art Newspaper reported.

The ruling on July 13 comes after a regional court ruling in 2022 and a Supreme Court ruling in 2021, neither of which were favorable for the descendants who filed a lawsuit regarding a collection of gemstone and precious artifacts dating back from the 11th to the 15th century that originated in the House of Guelph, a royal dynasty in Europe.

The collection includes crosses, altarpieces and crucifixes. In 1929, the Guelph family sold items from the treasure to Frankfurt-based art dealers, whose descendants are now leading the lawsuit against the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. The Guelph Treasure is reportedly valued at up to $250 million and is the largest publicly owned collection of its kind in Germany.

A restitution case was first brought in 2008 against the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which is supported by the German government and manages the Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) where the artifacts currently reside. Heirs of the Jewish art dealers claimed that their ancestors sold items from the Guelph Treasure under duress, at a price far below market value, to the Nazi government in 1935. They argued that the forced sale of the Guelph Treasure should be recognized as theft and that the items should be returned to them under the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.

But SPK argued that it is immune from US legal decisions under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and claimed that the Guelph Treasure was sold voluntarily. In 2014, the German Advisory Commission on Nazi-looted art upheld the foundation’s standing that the sale was not forced as a result of Nazi persecution and that the financial loss suffered by the art dealers during the sale was merely related to market values during the Great Depression.

SPK’s President Hermann Parzinger welcomed the ruling last week by the US Court of Appeals. “This ruling confirms the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s view that a claim for the restitution of the Guelph Treasure should not be handled by a US court,” he said in a statement cited by The Art Newspaper.

Nicholas O’Donnell of Sullivan & Worcester in Boston, the attorney representing the claimants, said in a separate statement cited by the art newspaper that he and his clients “are continuing to review the opinion and consider our next steps.”

“Germany’s continued refusal to acknowledge the obviously coercive sale involving Hermann Goering’s agents for what it was—theft—stands in stark contrast to Germany’s obligations under the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art,” he added.