Romanian prince wants Christie’s to hand over $9M painting allegedly stolen by Nazi ‘puppet’ uncle

The grandson of Romania’s last legitimate king wants Christie’s to give him a $9 million painting by a Spanish Renaissance master he claims was stolen from the family by a disgraced, Nazi-collaborating uncle.

Paul Philippe of Romania, who fought for decades to be recognized as a rightful heir to the country’s former monarchy and uses the title Prince Paul, laid out the sordid tale of his Uncle Michael’s alleged royal subterfuge in a Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit against the famed auction house.

Christie’s was set this month to sell El Greco’s painting Saint Sébastien, which was painted between 1610 and 1614, but pulled the piece after the Romanian government tried to stake a claim to the painting, according to reports and court papers.

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The Romanian government has no legitimate claim to the famed artwork because it was stolen and its provenance was fabricated, Philippe insisted in the lawsuit, claiming it was the sole property of the former ruler.

His grandfather, King Carol II, was the “last parliament-confirmed Romanian king,” before he was forced into exile in 1940 by Adolf Hitler and the country’s Nazi-aligned Prime Minister, Ion Antonescu.

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King Carol had two sons, Carol and Michael. The elder boy was the result of a marriage that was eventually annulled by the king’s father, forcing the monarch to remarry.

While King Carol’s oldest was shunned for years as illegitimate, Michael went on to become “the puppet king of Romania’s Soviet-dominated government.”

As a reward for his loyalty, the Nazis permitted Michael in November 1947 to secretly secure a load of family valuables, including Saint Sébastien and 41 other artworks.

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The loot — including another El Greco painting called Canon Bosio — was packed “into two boxcars attached to the Orient Express, the contents of which were unloaded, and secretly stored for decades, in vaults at Swiss bank UBS in Zurich,” he contended in court papers.

Michael let his father believe the valuables had been confiscated by the communist regime, according to Philippe.

“Knowing that he had no right to his father’s paintings, Michael kept the paintings secret until Carol II died in 1953 and Carol II’s wife, Princess Elena became deathly ill in 1976,” Philippe claimed.

Michael then sold Canon Bosio and Saint Sébastien to a New York art dealer in 1976, claiming at the time that King Carol’s “heirs” had agreed to sell the work, Prince Paul said in court papers.

“Had Prince Paul and his father known of the sale, they would have asserted their ownership rights, which would have either blocked the sale or forced Michael to share the proceeds,” according to the lawsuit.

The New York dealer then quickly sold Saint Sébastien to an unknown buyer, for an undisclosed sum.

King Carol II, whose art collection included nine El Greco masterpieces, was forced to live in exile until his death in Portugal in 1953.

His son Michael, who eventually attempted to lead a coup against the Nazis in Romania, gave up the throne in 1947 and died in 2017 at age 96.

Prince Paul — who was charged with corruption in 2020 for allegedly scheming to reclaim his family’s ancestral lands and became a fugitive, only to beat back efforts to extradite him — wants a court to order Christie’s to give him Saint Sébastien, contending the unknown current owner will take it out of New York unless a judge intervenes.

“Prince Paul has not previously tried to recover Saint Sébastien for Carol II’s estate because he didn’t know where it was until last week’s press reports that Christie’s had withdrawn the painting from auction after the Romanian government asserted a claim,” said Philippe’s lawyer, Edward Griffith.

Christie’s declined comment on the lawsuit.