Venerable Art Dealer Is Beset by Lawsuits
On a mild day in January, French police investigators poured into the regal Right Bank building of an art research center called the Wildenstein Institute and began sifting through a substantial trove of artworks there.
It was the third police raid on the institute, and at the end of it the investigators carried away armloads of art, including Degas drawings, a bronze sculpture by Rembrandt Bugatti and an Impressionist painting of a Normandy cottage by Berthe Morisot. All had been reported missing or stolen, some by Jewish families whose property was looted by the Nazis, and others by heirs who said their treasures had vanished during the settlement of their family estates.