New York, NY - Judge Stops Sale Of Picasso Painting Worth Up To $60M

New York, NY - A Picasso painting expected to fetch $60 million was taken off the auction block so a Manhattan judge could determine if its former owner was pressured by the Nazis into selling it.

"Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto" was scheduled to be auctioned off at Christie's, but Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff put the hammer down on the sale.
Rakoff temporarily blocked the auction until he could get to the bottom of a lawsuit filed by an heir to banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, who had been a wealthy Jewish banker in Germany until the Nazis took over.
The lawsuit claims Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was targeted by Adolph Hitler for persecution because the Nazis blamed private Jewish-owned banks for Germany's failed economy.

U/D: 11:37
The judge ruled that the Picasso painting can be sold at auction.