Claim by Museums of Public Trusteeship and Their Response to Restitution Claims: A Self-Serving Attempt to Keep Holocaust-Looted Art‪.‬

When faced with demands for deaccessioning in the context of Holocaust-era art, many museums have made the claim that legal or ethical responsibilities to the public make it difficult to restitute art. Museums base this claim on the premise that the art in their collections is held 'in trust' for the public. Against the backdrop of this 'public trust', museums often present technical defences, such as the statute of limitations and laches, as a means of preventing Holocaust looted art cases from ever reaching the merits. Indeed, some museums have gone so far as to explain that, where a museum determines that a claim lacks merit, it is the museum's 'fiduciary responsibility' to raise such technical defences. (1) For example, in a case involving a claim by the heirs of Martha Nathan, a German Jew who had been forced to flee Nazi Germany, the Detroit Institute of Arts (the 'DIN) initiated a declaratory judgment to defend its rights to the disputed picture based on statute of limitations grounds. While this, in and of itself, is not notable, the explanation provided by Graham Beal, the Director of the DIA, as to why the museum raised this defence is significant. According to Beal, the museum had concluded that the sale of the painting had been legitimate, and not under Nazi duress. Nonetheless, the heirs "declined to withdraw their claims." (2) As a result of "these circumstances", the DIA determined that it had a "fiduciary responsibility to protect the DIA's ownership [of the painting], using all legal means available, including the statute of limitations and laches." (3) As similarly expressed in the DIA's complaint, it was "incumbent upon the DIA to reject [the