Schoeps v. Museum of Modern Art

MEMORANDUM ORDER

JED S. RAKOFF, District Judge.

At the heart of this action are issues of considerable public import. Plaintiffs, heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and his wife, claim that two of New York’s foremost cultural institutions turned a blind eye to the fact that great works of art in their collections — Pablo Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse (1905-1906), now owned by the Museum of Modern Art, and Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette (1900), now owned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Collection — were sold by von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy against his will because of Nazi duress in the 1930s.…