[Pick] A painting worth over 200 billion, bought for 40 million won?... Dispute over the work of the century

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The family of the previous owner filed a lawsuit to invalidate the sale of Pablo Picasso's masterpiece 'The Ironing Woman', which is owned by the Guggenheim Museum in New York, USA.

Foreign media such as the New York Times (NYT) reported on the 30th local time that the family of Karl Adler, a Jewish-German, recently filed a lawsuit against the Guggenheim Museum to return Picasso's oil painting 'The Ironing Woman'.

The work at the center of the lawsuit, 'The Ironing Woman', is a work by Picasso in 1904, and is regarded as a representative work of the 'blue age' in which he painted using the dark blue color.

As much as it boasts high popularity among Picasso's works, it is estimated that the work 'The Ironing Woman' will be traded for up to 200 million dollars (approximately 246 billion won) if it comes to the market right away.

This work was sold to Adler, a Jewish-German, in 1916 through Justin Tannhauser, a famous artist in Munich, but Adler sold it back to Tannhauser in 1938.

As the Nazis began to take power and the persecution of Jews began, Adler organized the works before escaping Germany.

When Adler resold the work to Tannhauser, the amount was $1,552 (currently equivalent to $32,000, approximately 39 million Korean won), after which Tannhauser moved to the United States and donated the work to the Guggenheim Museum in 1978. .

But today, 85 years after Adler's last deal with Tannhauser, Adler's family has filed a lawsuit claiming that the 1938 deal was invalid.

Adler's family said that the work was sold at a bargain price for Picasso's work, which had been popular in the world art market since the early 20th century. I pinched the facts.

This amount is about nine times more than the actual price Adler sold the painting to Tanhauser in 1938.

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▲ The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

In response to this claim, the Guggenheim Museum refuted that there is no problem with the ownership of the work.

The museum noted that Adler and Tannhauser had a long-standing, close relationship, and that there was no evidence that the 1938 deal was unfair, and that when they contacted Adler's son, Eric Adler, in the 1970s about the ownership of the work, He stressed that there were no complaints.

Regarding the ownership dispute over the artwork of the century, experts explained that 'there is a precedent that Jews under Nazi Germany could not get a fair deal'.

He added, "If Adler sold Picasso's work in Germany, the precedent could be applied, but if Adler sold his work abroad after escaping from Germany, it is difficult to apply this precedent."

(Photo = Guggenheim Museum)