Herzog Heirs Sue Hungary in US Court to Recover Art

The heirs of Baron Mór Lipót Herzog, a Budapest collector of fine art who assembled one of the greatest art collections in Europe before World War II, filed suit against four Hungarian museums in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on July 27, 2010. The family is seeking to recover many paintings and other works of art taken in the early 1940s that either remained in or came into the possession of Hungarian government museums. The list includes major paintings of the highest quality by artists such as El Greco, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Zurbarán, Sir Anthony van Dyck, Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. It also includes Renaissance paintings and sculptures and some ancient works of art.

The family tried negotiating with the government from the time of the Soviet bloc's dissolution, but after eight fruitless years filed suit in Hungary. Although the lower court's decision in 2000 in that case was favorable, after eight more years of litigation, it was clear there would be no restitution. The lawsuit just filed seeks to remedy the injustice of decades of Hungarian Government intransigence.

The Herzog heirs have set up a website about the collection and their claims.