By David Hewett, New York
How a Few Wealthy Cuban Refugees Managed to Hold Sotheby's Fingers to the Flame (and got much more than they asked for)

If you're looking for a story with a mix of near-fictional elements —Impressionist paintings slipped surreptitiously across international borders, the detective who snapped photos in a northern Italian bedroom, and agents with agendas working inside the State Department— darn few stories top the tale of the Fanjul family's super-financed quest for justice in the recovery of their expropriated works of art.

The  Background
The Fanjul family of Cuba made their fortunes by raising sugar cane, refining sugar, and controlling that staple in the world market. By the late 19th century, they were reckoned as one of the top three sugar producers in the world. The immediate family, as the midpoint of the 20th century approached, consisted of Lillian and Alfonso Fanjul and their five children.

They owned, besides property abroad, an impressive amount in Cuba: four sugar mills, a cattle farm, a rice mill, four apartment buildings (with up to 27 apartments in some), and entire blocks and rows of houses and shops in downtown Havana . They also held stocks and shares and had large quantities of antiques that included period French furniture, Aubusson tapestries, Chinese export porcelains, and some paintings.

Their art collection included works by Hoppner, Goya, Murillo, Michelangelo, and at least 19 sketches and paintings by Spanish Impressionist artist Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida. One of the minor Sorolla paintings in the Fanjul collection was an oil on canvas view of the port of Málaga. That painting doesn't have a huge monetary value, but it would prove to be the key item in the Fanjul collection, as later events would establish.

In 1959 the elder Fanjuls and the children owned at least 200 works of art, with a worth presently estimated to be between $20 and $60 million, enough material, when combined with their other art objects, to fully stock two museums in Havana. (At the end of this article, see the list of the antiques and art seized by the Castro administration.) There was one problem looming on the horizon. They were living in a country that was about to trade its dictator-run form of government for a system based on communism.

World Politics and Art
When regimes change, ownership of real property in the affected geographic areas changes accordingly. When Mongol hordes swept across Europe in the dark past, they took what they wanted with them when they returned to their homelands. Conquerors have been doing the same throughout history.

The practice of victims reclaiming the spoils of the victors after hostilities cease is largely a 20th-century phenomenon, an abnormality when considered historically, easily confirmed by the material found in museums and private collections throughout the world.

Many countries operate under a broad rule known as the Act of State Doctrine. That doctrine holds that if a foreign power or government is recognized, then its domestic policies have validity and cannot be challenged.

For example, under the Act of State Doctrine, countries recognized that the Russia headed by a czar was doomed by the revolution that began in October 1917. There-fore, while the holdings of Russian state museums had been controlled by the royal family, that control was passed to others after the revolution was fact. If those in charge in later years decided to sell some of the contents of the museums, despite the fact that many would regard those actions as deplorable, most governments would view them as legal transactions. How did you think Egypt 's King Farouk, then, later, Malcolm Forbes, were able to acquire all those Fabergé baubles?

The politics of the countries involved usually come into play in the immediate period after regime change, and that's when events really become muddled.

The Events Up to 2000
At 2 a .m. on the morning of January 1, 1959, dictator Fulgencio Batista and his family boarded airplanes and flew away from Cuba . The revolution led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had won, and, after a general strike and the fall of several government institutions, Castro emerged as prime minister on February 16.

The Fanjul family had been watching a fireworks show in Havana harbor when Batista fled, but they had not been oblivious of the changing attitudes in their homeland. As José "Pepe" Fanjul, scion of Lillian and Alfonso and the current co-head of the family business, noted in an interview with London Times investigative reporter Peter Watson, "My father had tried to get Batista to allow Cuba to return to democracy. So when Castro came in, we were not the first people he went for. Batista's imme-diate entourage was executed early on. But then, throughout 1960, pressures were put on the business community, and my grandfather and father thought it was wiser to leave. That year, month by month, the family emigrated."

There were no public good-byes, no tearful gatherings at the airport, no big public sale of assets. The Fanjuls left unobtrusively with only what they could carry. They left fortunes behind, but they were far from pauperism. When they finally did apply for a particular form of American welfare, it was a far different one from that given to those living in the barrios of Miami and Los Angeles . The Fanjuls get $65 million a year in agricultural subsidies through a federal program meant to support American farmers and sugar producers.

The family sold some of their New York properties and settled in Palm Beach, Florida, where they began to reestablish their sugar business. They succeeded brilliantly.

Today, the Fanjul family, led by brothers Alfonso, Jr. and Pepe, again own one of the three largest sugar companies in the world. Annual sales, according to Pepe Fanjul, are $2.5 billion annually.

They own 180,000 acres of sugar cane in Florida and 240,000 acres in the Dominican Republic. They have broadened out in other businesses. They closed one of their refineries, Domino Sugar, in the Williamsburg section in New York City in 2004, resulting in some 250 workers losing their jobs. Union sources attributed the closing to the Fanjuls' plans for real estate development on that site.

Periodically, there were whispers and rumors in the art community about the fate of the family collections. In the mid-1960's some of the paintings were rumored to be in Italy. Pepe Fanjul investigated and found nothing. He was able to sample the prevailing winds in Europe, however, and what he learned was not comforting.

Whatever the Castro government decided to do with the family holdings, he was told, would be viewed by Europeans as its right under the Act of State Doctrine. That wasn't the sentiment on this side of the Atlantic. Whipped on by anti-Castro elements in Florida and elsewhere, the U.S. Congress passed a series of bills restricting trade with that country.

In 1980 father Afonso Senior died. Then, in the late 1980's through the early 1990's, another revolution rocked the Americas, this one in the world of art and antiques.

Maine Antique Digest recorded new auction price records at 189 separate auctions during the latter half of the 1980's alone, many times multiple records were broken at a single sale.  The big news in the art world came in 1990, when Christie's sold van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet for $82.5 million. Art prices were going through the ceiling, and the Fanjuls knew what that could portend.

The Berlin Wall fell, a different and leaner Russia emerged, and Cuba lost the considerable funding it had enjoyed from the Soviets. The Castro government would have to look elsewhere for sources of revenue. One of those sources might come from within the Havana city limits itself, at the National Museum of Fine Arts, or perhaps in another former-Fanjul residence, now known as the Museum of Decorative Arts.

In 1993 the Fanjuls registered their concerns about the family art collection with all the major auction houses. They formalized those concerns in letters acknowledged by Sotheby's, Christie's, and Phillips. They also recorded their holdings with London 's Art Loss Register, which maintains a large database of all the stolen art recorded with them.

In 1995 Sotheby's was involved in a Spanish court case brought by the estate of former Cuban businessman Oscar Cintas. Sotheby's had sold some Cintas paintings that had been left behind after the revolution. From the details of that case, the Fanjul family learned that the Castro government was behind the paintings sold through Sotheby's, and that Sotheby's had partly financed the deal.

That was intriguing information, because Pepe Fanjul had learned that Blanca Pons-Sorolla, the great-granddaughter of Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida, the artist who pro-duced the approximately 20 works his family left in Cuba, who was a leading authority on her great-grandfather's work, had been contacted by Sotheby's in Madrid in 1995 to authenticate a painting of the port city of Málaga. She looked at it, said it was authentic, and left. She told Pepe Fanjul where the family Sorolla painting was and who had it.

Secret Agents and Lies Told in Rooms in Italy
This convoluted tale about the events was laid out to editor Clayton Pennington in a May interview with attorney Shanker Singham of the Florida-based law firm Steel Hector & Davis, LLP. Singham is the co-chair of the firm's International Trade, Competition and Government Group.

Steel Hector & Davis (SHD) represents and maintains a watching brief for the Fanjul family's interests. It's a lucrative and important role, one for which it appears more than capable.

Singham took note of the Oscar Cintas case and the involvement of Blanca Pons-Sorolla and learned that the lawyer for the person who was said to own the Fanjuls' Malaga port painting was Jeremy Scott. Jeremy Scott is listed as a partner with Withers, LLP in London; he's the principal lawyer involved in commercial and Chancery litigation. Withers, LLP and Withers Bergman are the two names of the large international firm with over 200 principals, counsels, and associates. The firm has offices in New York, New Haven, London, and Milan .

Singham said, "He [Scott] said that the painting had been held by Sotheby's to his client's order between '93 and '95. What clued us off to was the fact that Sotheby's was holding this painting from '93 to '95, after the Art Watch registration, which was in '92, and after the letters [had been received informing Sotheby's of the Fanjul family's claims]."

It's a crucial point and bears reiterating: Steel Hector & Davis now knew that the Fanjuls' painting had been held by Sotheby's after the date on which Sotheby's had been notified that a claim had been registered by the proper owner. They now sought to discover who the person consigning the painting was and where it was currently located.

They did what any law firm with wealthy clients like the Fanjuls would do, they hired a detective.

Singham had read a 1997 book by Peter Watson, Sotheby's: the Inside Story, and, as he told it, "I saw a couple of names that were very familiar. One of the names was Alex Apsis, who is an art dealer in New York now, but was then with Sotheby's. [Apsis left Sotheby's in 1999.] Apsis ran a part-financing operation for Sotheby's that was involved in the Cintas litigation."

Another name recognized by Singham was Bruno Scaioli of Italy. Author Peter Watson expanded on Scaioli in a London Times investigative report, stating that Scaioli allegedly provided Sotheby's as many as 50 pictures that may have had a dubious provenance and once had an arrangement to find art for the auction house in South America. According to a report appearing in the New York Times, Bruno Scaioli routinely shipped artwork through a free-trade zone in Switzerland to avoid British import taxes.

The methods detailed in the Watson book appeared similar to events he had experienced with the Fanjul paintings, Singham said, "so we began to wonder if Bruno was not indeed, could be, the possessor [of the Fanjul-owned Malaga port painting]. Well, we sent an investigator."

Singham said, "We actually found him [Bruno Scaioli] by calling the Yellow Pages in Alessandria, in Italy, and asked and got his address and his phone number. So the investigator then set up a series of meetings with him, to talk about what he had. And in the course of this process, this sort of sting operation, he was shown the painting and took a photograph, so that now we had our proof."

Peter Watson names the "investigator"; he was Simon Hornby, a Miami risk consultant and loss investigator for Lloyd's of London. Hornby traveled to London, phoned Scaioli from there, went to Alessandria, Italy , and pretended to come from Switzerland on a search for privately owned art to purchase for a serious and wealthy art collector.

It took several visits to convince Scaioli of Hornby's legitimacy, but finally in July 2000 he got to see and photograph the view of Málaga by Sorolla in an upstairs room. Scaioli said he had bought it from Cuban authorities eight years previously and made references to Jeremy Scott of the Withers legal firm.

Steel Hector & Davis now had concrete evidence that the painting had left Cuba and had been in the possession of Sotheby's and had in fact been authenticated by someone paid by Sotheby's, all after that firm had been informed of the Fanjul challenge to other claims of ownership.

The big problem remained: how could the Fanjul family and their legal representatives stop the person alleging to be the owner from continuing to offer it, perhaps again through Sotheby's?

Hunting for Big Guns to Bag Big Game
Steel Hector & Davis, LLP was well aware that it might not prevail in the courts, if the battle for the Fanjuls' confiscated property got to that point, but there were other methods that might accomplish its goal. If the battle for ownership could be transformed into a battle of good versus evil, of the hated Communists of Cuba against the American way of life and all that might stand for, then it might win.

If the Castro government was the enemy, then those dealing with them were trading with the enemy, and in the Florida of the advent of the 21st century, the chosen land of the Fanjuls, the home office of Steel Hector & Davis, there were many who hated the enemy back on the warm shores of Cuba with a burning passion.

In times of war, trading with the enemy can have drastic repercussions, no matter how well connected you are. On October 20, 1942, the U.S. Alien Property Custodian, acting under the Trading With the Enemy Act, had even seized the shares of the Union Banking Corporation (UBC), of which Prescott Bush (the current president's grandfather) was a director and shareholder.

The largest company Bush's UBC helped finance was German Steel Trust, responsible for producing between one-third and one-half of the entire stock of Nazi iron and explosives. The Silesian American Corporation, which was also managed by Prescott Bush and by his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, supplied coal to the Nazi war industry. It was also seized as a Nazi front in 1942.

The Congress of the United States equated the Castro administration in Cuba with that of Hitler-run Germany, despite the fact that many European countries don't share that view, and passed laws restricting trade with that country. It remained for Steel Hector & Davis to meld the facts of the current situation into the pot containing those laws, let it simmer for a while, then see what bubbled to the top.

With Shanker Singham on board, the firm was particularly well situated to do just that. One of Singham's specialties is advising clients on U.S. sanctions legislation, including the Helms-Burton Act, customs regulations, and Foreign-Trade Zones Board applications. His clients were also particularly well placed politically to seek help from those within the Bush administration.

Pepe Fanjul is an honored Bush fund-raiser, a "Bush Ranger" twice over. The family and their various business entities and corporate executives have given $2.6 million to various politicians since 1979. Since 1991, Fanjul companies have contributed $186,500 in soft money to Republican national committees and $131,000 to the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Pepe Fanjul also served as a former fund-raiser for Bob Dole. His brother Alfonso gave money to the Clinton campaigns.

Republican interests appear paramount with the Fanjuls, though. The present President Bush rewarded the Fanjuls and other sugar growers in 2002 when, despite opposition from some Democrats and conservative Republicans, he signed a new agriculture bill that extended price supports for sugar growers.

The Fanjuls and associated sugar interests spent a reported $24 million to defeat a proposed cleanup of the Everglades during the last decade. Runoff from sugar mills was wreaking havoc with the swamp, but the sugar efforts (and money) led Governor Jeb Bush to sign laws killing any such cleanup work for at least the next decade.

At the federal level, the Fanjuls have allies in Roger Noriega and Dan Fisk. Noriega is the assistant secretary for the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the State Department and was the lead staffer for Jesse Helms. Dan Fisk was a lead staffer on the Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Jesse Helms and is a deputy assistant secretary. They were very involved in writing the Helms-Burton Act.

On March 12, 1996, the U.S. passed into law The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which is the correct title of the Helms-Burton Act, so-called because it was introduced in 1995 by Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Dan Burton.

Without going into specifics, the Helms-Burton Act tightened the already-in-place laws forbidding commerce with Cuba and provided penalties for all those who trade with, aid, or seek to trade with or deal in the assets of U.S. citizens seized by that country. On the larger scale, Helms-Burton provides for sanctions and penalties on countries that aid and/or trade with Cuba . It lets complaints be heard by civil courts here.

The part of Helms-Burton that is specifically relevant to the Fanjul situation is that it forbade financing by U.S. citizens of transactions involving property expropriated and subject to a U.S. claim.

So, as Shanker Singham told Clayton Pennington, "We then went to the State Department and filed the Helms-Burton Title Four claim. If you're a current possessor [of Cuban-expropriated material], if you're a trafficker in the stolen property, then you, under Title Four, will have your visa revoked, and you potentially could be listed as a Cuban, a specially-designated Cuban national, which would mean that all your listings in the U.S. would be suspended, and all your assets frozen."

They made good use of the letter that had been written by Jeremy Scott. Singham said, "Basically, it's an extraordinary letter and subsequently became Exhibit A in our State Department filing, first of all because it admitted liability."

Singham said Scott "said the painting had been listed, had been provenanced as being part of the Gómez-Mena collection. Well, it would have taken about fifteen seconds on Google to ascertain that Gómez-Mena is the mother of Alfie [Alfonso, Jr.] and Pepe Fanjul."

Helms-Burton was a mighty big hammer, but it was the very tool Steel Hector & Davis had been looking for. They filed the claim in 2004.

Squeezed in the Vise, Sotheby's Caves
Shanker Singham spoke about his Washington meeting. "We encountered a very positive response from the State Department, because right now, the Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, and the Deputy Assistant Secretary who handles Cuba, the Central Americas, and Caribbean , Dan Fisk, were in previous lives the lead staffers for the Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Jesse Helms, who wrote the Helms-Burton legislation. We obviously had a very positive response from our filing. They were looking for this kind of case. The State Department is now interested in what's happened here and wants to get to the bottom of it," Singham said.

The law firm couched the call for an investigation in terms deliberately phrased to appeal to anti-Castro advocates. The following is from the firm's July 19, 2004, submission to Roger Noriega: "The Castro regime must be prevented from selling off parts of this and other similar Cuban sourced collections for hard currency purposes to support the regime."

Using the Helms-Burton Act against Sotheby's was a brilliant tactic, because of the possible penalties involved. "The terms of the Helms-Burton Act are very broad," Singham said. "They're intended to capture financing, any kind of interest you might have in confiscated property. They are deliberately written to be very broad. This is legislation that's political legislation, intended to be a disincentive, so it's very ambiguous."

Singham went over the chain of events they presented to Roger Noriega against Sotheby's, event by event.

"The complaint against Sotheby's was essentially that they had part-financed [the Fanjul port painting]...We knew there had been part-financing [in the past], so it was inconceivable there had been part-financing on the whole raft of Sorollas that had come out of Cuba, but not this one. So we knew that that was the case, therefore there was a likelihood that Sotheby's had been involved in some kind of activity with respect to Bruno [Scaioli] after the effective date of the Helms-Burton Act, which was 1996."

If found in violation of Helms-Burton, the sanctions would be serious, including preventing Sotheby's directors from traveling to the U.S. "If they were specially designated [as Cuban] nationals, then Sotheby's London could not deal with Sotheby's New York, the bank accounts would be frozen, it would be a nightmare," said Singham.

The rationale for action may have been predicated on a rather tenuous scenario, but it posed a threat that could only be ignored at great peril. In retrospect, it appears that Sotheby's may have been in a much better position regarding the alleged violation of the Helms-Burton Act than the law firm postulated.

We only recently became aware of a 2002 story in the New York Times written by Celestine Bohlen. In that piece, Sotheby's spokesman Matthew Weigman admitted the painting had been brought to Sotheby's but said it was only for an appraisal. They had it authenticated, Weigman said, and then could not agree on an estimate of its value and so never offered it for sale. Sotheby's was contacted by the Art Loss Register people, Weigman said, and asked if they'd sold the Malaga port painting, and they replied they hadn't. Diana Phillips of Sotheby's acknowledged that Weigman had been accurately quoted.

Regarding the filing of the complaint, Diana Phillips said, "We voluntarily contacted the State Department and told them they would have our full cooperation in any investigation they decided to conduct. We remain confident that there has been no violation of Helms-Burton or any other law relating to trade with Cuba or objects of Cuban origin."

In February of this year, members of the law firm met with Sotheby's officers, specifically William Ruprecht, the president and chief financial officer, and his advisors.

Singham said, "I was frankly amazed by the meeting we had with Ruprecht and his team." He told Singham, "All along, in my comments to the press, I said all we wanted was for Sotheby's to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."

Ruprecht noted, Singham said, "‘We think we are in a much better position than you to ensure that this work does not emerge on the international art market, that's because we have offices all over the world. We see a lot of art.'"

And what would Sotheby's do? William Ruprecht said, according to Singham, "We're prepared to do something along the lines of what we've done in the case of Holocaust art: issue guidelines for all company employees as to how they handle this art; set up a red flag alert system of names we could add to. If some dealer or some Sotheby's person in Australia sees one of these red flag names, they have an obligation to notify the legal department."

Ruprecht agreed to do more than that, Singham said. "They've agreed that if somebody consigns to them a painting which is on the list of major works we have submitted to them, they will, instead of giving it back, which is what many auction houses would do, will hold onto it. They will tell the consignor that they are holding onto it because it is part of the Fanjul collection, and it is up to the consignor and the Fanjuls to decide what to do with it.

"If that person is recalcitrant, or we don't come to an agreement, then Sotheby's on their own will apply to the court for a ruling.

"What this is doing is telling art dealers in general that you're at huge risk if you're trading in this stuff. You're going to lose it. And your name will go on the red flag list, and you won't be able to deal with Sotheby's at all. So I think this is a significant development.

"One of the things they said in the original meeting we had in February was, when we, Sotheby's, do something, it is very difficult for others not to follow suit, because they are simply so dominant in the art world. That was our intention, all along, to have the art world in general treat this stolen property as stolen property, and that's why I think these guidelines are very significant."

Singham admitted that they had reached no agreement with Christie's or other auction houses but was confident that those avenues would be closed. With the State Department on notice, and Sotheby's now an ally, he felt that the Fanjul collection was safely accounted for, wherever it is at present.

Singham would not speak for the record about the negotiations Steel Hector & Davis had with Christie's, so we took our questions directly to Andrée Corroon, their head of corporate communications. Corroon said Christie's has a policy of not commenting about ongoing discussions regarding consignors, but "has always had a policy of not selling any work of art we believe had been stolen, either by individuals or regimes."

We asked if "regimes" covered changes in government that are recognized by other governments, and if material expropriated by the new government would be defined as stolen. She refused to get involved in the semantics of the situation but reiterated that it covered "any" stolen material.

Sotheby's and the Fanjul Family Reach an Agreement
The full text of the April 27, 2005, press release issued by Sotheby's:

"Sotheby's and the Fanjul family are pleased to announce that they have reached an agreement regarding the treatment of art confiscated from the Fanjul family by the Castro regime in Cuba .

"Sotheby's has agreed that it will not handle any such property in light of the Fanjul family's ownership claims in respect of such property. Should it unwittingly come into possession of any such work, Sotheby's will notify the family and maintain possession of such property until any title issues have been resolved, consistent with existing policies governing art subject to conflicting title claims.

"As a sign of its serious intent, Sotheby's has also adopted guidelines that will be distributed to all relevant employees announcing this new policy and emphasizing the importance of identifying any such works. This will include an internal alert system, which consists of red flag names and issues related to the Fanjul family's collection. Importantly, these guidelines will apply to both private sales as well as public auctions.

"Senior family spokesman, Jose "Pepe" Fanjul, said ‘we are gratified by Sotheby's approach. With these new guidelines in place, we are confident that our collection will now be off limits in the art world as we trust that others in the art market will follow Sotheby's example. My family and I are delighted with this outcome.' Joseph P. Klock, Jr., of Steel Hector and Davis LLP, family counsel, praised Sotheby's. ‘To have the leading auction house in the world recognize the significance of enforcing these important property rights is a very meaningful step. With as powerful a voice as Sotheby's articulating this message, the ability of renegade art smugglers and outlaw governments to traffic in stolen art will be seriously curtailed.'"

The Official List of Fanjul Holdings Subject to Seizure under Helms-Burton
The current generation of Fanjuls acquired their art and antiques property through marriage, purchase, and inheritance. The following list, compiled by the family and their legal team and submitted to Roger Noriega, assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, as Exhibit 7, has been edited for space considerations.

Artwork by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida:

1. Sketch for Vuelta de la Pesca (sketch for Back from Fishing), 1894, 67.5 x 47 cm .

2. Gitana (Gypsy Girl), 1899, 107 x 77 cm .

3. Barcas en un Canal (Boats in a canal), 1895-1900, 38 x 54.5 cm .

4. Verano (Summer), was once titled Al Agua (To the Water), 1904, 149 x 252 cm .

5. La Niña de las Uvas (Girl with Grapes), 1905, 111 x 64.5 cm .

6. Clotilde paseando en los jardines de La Granja (Clotilde taking a walk in La Granja Gardens , also known as A Lady in the Gardens of La Granja), 1907, 170 x 100 cm .

7. Valenciana Recogiendo Naranjas (Valencia Girl Picking up Oranges ), 1908, 106 x 157 cm .

8. Regatas (Regattas, also known as Regatta Day, San Sebastian), 1908, 121 x 201 cm .

9. Generalife ( Granada , also known as Generalife Fountain), 1910, 108 x 81.5 cm .

10. Habitaciones de los Reyes Católicos en la Alhambra (Room of the Catholic Kings in the Alhambra , Granada , also known as Generalife Door), 1910, 109 x 86 cm .

11. Castillo de Málaga , formerly titled Rincón de la Victoria, Málaga (Malaga Castle, Malaga Port, Victory Corner, Malaga), 1910, 63 x 95 cm .

12. San Sebastián , Paleta (San Sebastian, palette painting), undated, 34.5 x 59.5 cm .

13. Isabelita , 15½" x 12½".

14. En la Playa, Valencia (At the beach, Valencia), 1898, 22½" x 33½".

15. Ceramic round plate, 9½" diameter, oil painting of a woman's face.

16. Mujeres Pintando y Cosiendo (Women painting and sewing), a sketch.

17. Pescador Cosiendo la Vela (Fisherman sewing a sail), a sketch.

18. Mujeres Comprando Pescada (Women buying fish), a sketch.

19. Regatas en Valencia (Regattas in Valencia).

20. El baño, Javea (The bath, Javea), 1905, 36" x 50".

Paintings by other artists:

21. Paul Chabas, Aurora (Dawn), large painting, misty subject, with nude figures.

22. Paul Chabas, Retrato de Niña (Girl portrait), 30 3/8" x 39 3/8", portrait of Lillian Gómez Mena as a child.

23. Manuelo Benedito y Vives, Escena Mitol ó gica (Mythological scene), small painting depicting women in a cart with oxen.

24. Giovanni Boldini, Mujer Andaluza (Andalusian woman).

25. Antonio Casanova y Estorach, Figuras (Figures), small painting on board.

26. Antonio Casanova y Estorach, Cabeza de Fraile (Friar's head), small painting on board.

27. Ramón Casas y Carbó, Flora con Claveles Rojos (Flora with red carnations), large painting.

28. Jean Gabriel Domerque, Desnudo (Nude).

29. Francisco Domingo y Marqués, El Peligro Amarillo (The Yellow Peril), medium-sized painting.

30. Francisco Domingo y Marqués, Meriendas y Cacerías (Picnic and hunting), small painting on board.

31. Francisco Domingo y Marqués, Cabeza de Personaje Antiguo (Head of an old character), small painting.

32. Roberto Domingo y Fallola, Una Capea (Waving a cape), gouache.

33. Roberto Domingo y Fallola, Fortuna en un Molinete (Fortuna, a Famous Matador, in a flourish), gouache.

34. Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, Papagayos (Parrots), oil on small board.

35. Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, Caballero Español, Siglo XVIII (Spanish Cavalier, XVIII Century), small watercolor.

36. Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, Parque del Buen Retiro (Buen Retiro Park, Madrid, also Parque del Retiro, Madrid ), 30.5 x 46 cm ., has name Fortuny in circle.

37. José García y Ramos, Peregrinos en Santiago de Compostela (Pilgrims in Santiago de Compostela), small painting with figures and the famous cathedral in the background.

38. Manuel García y Rodríguez, Sevilla ( Seville ), small painting depicting some place in Seville .

39. Antonio Gomar y Gomar, Huerta de Valencia (Valencia Vegetable Garden), good-sized elongated painting.

40. Daniel Hernández y Morillo, Frilleuse (Chilly), 13 5/8" x 21 5/8", oil on board.

41. La Modistilla (The Little Seamstress).

42. Ricardo Lopéz Cabrera, Muchacha Regando Flores (Girl Watering Flowers), board.

43. José Llaneces, El Libro Verde (The Green Book).

44. Raimundo de Madrazo y Garetta, Aurora , a medium-sized portrait of a blonde woman with a tilted head, 65.4 x 54.8 cm .

45. Salvador Martínez y Cubells, Hórreo, granary or barn on pillars, a large painting.

46. Joaquín Mir y Trixnet, Paisaje de Palma de Mallorca (Palma de Mallorca landscape), 62.5 x 79.5 cm .

47. José Mongrell y Torrent , El Requiebro (Flirtation), a large painting.

48. José Mongrell y Torrent, A Vender Pescado (To Sell Fish), a large painting.

49, 50, and 51. Two versions of Niños (Children) by Ignacio Pinazo y Camarlench, and another titled Cabeza Infantil (A Child's Head).

This takes us halfway through page 12 of a 20-page list. There are also paintings by these Spanish and Latin American artists: Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz, Ramón Ribera y Cirera, Santiago Rusiñol y Prats, Salvador Sánchez Barbudo, Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scevola, José Villegas y Cordero, and Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta.

There is an "urban landscape" by Maurice Utrillo, a listing that just begs for more description, and approximately 50 palette paintings by various Spanish artists, plus two by Jacques Marie and Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scevola. According to the Steel Hector & Davis law firm, Sotheby's sold some of the palettes in the late 1990's.

There are two watercolor albums, one by Roberto Domingo, the other by Francisco Domingo Marqués.

There is a collection of over 200 painted postcards ("oils, gouaches, and drawings") by Spanish artists, many framed as "miniature pictures," including a "frontispiece with pencil sketch" by Michelangelo. Among the master artists responsible for the postcard-sized paintings are Guido Reni, Baldassare Castiglione, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Caravaggio, and others of similar ilk.

The list of antiques include a large wooden Louis XIV table with gilded bronze trim and hardware and a red-leather top; marble columns topped with bronze lamps by Pierre Gouthière; a Louis XV commode by Simeneaux; and a Louis XVI secrétaire by Jean-Henri Riesener, with bronzes by Pierre Gouthière, with the provenance of Marie Antoinette. There were two 17th-century coromandel screens, a bronze group by Spanish sculptor Mariano Benlliure, and French bronzes by Clodion.

Besides the scores of seating pieces necessary for the many-roomed residences of the Fanjuls in Cuba, there was a 200-piece porcelain table service from the 18th century, described as in the "lady with parasol pattern," from the East India Company, along with another service of 300 pieces in the Negrillon pattern, also from the early 18th century.

Another schedule of three pages lists a collection that was shared by Lillian Gómez-Mena (Mrs. Fanjul) and a cousin, Francisco Vivez Gómez.

There are two paintings by Hubert Robert (1733-1808), others by Louis Tocque (1696-1772), two by J.M. Nattier (1685-1766), three by J.F. Boucher (1703-1770), two French school (17th century), one by Charles LeBrun (1619-1690), Nicholas de Largilliere (1656-1746), Vigée LeBrun (1755-1842), John Hoppner (1758-1810), Giovanni B. Piazzetta (1683-1754), Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695), Dutch school (17th century), Escuela Flamenca (17th century), Bartolome E. Murillo (1617-1682), Jan Van Huyfums (1737), Gilles Demarteau (1722-1776), Giovanni Boldini, Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta, and 13 paintings by Jean Pillement (1728-1808).

The list ends with the bare-bones entry, "Collection of European prints, 18th and 19th centuries." There's not much chance of identifying anything from that description.

More Alleged Castro-Seized Art at Sotheby's
On Tuesday, May 24, members of the de la Torre family picketed outside the Upper East Side offices of Sotheby's. They were there because negotiations between Sotheby's and the family had broken down over a painting once owned by Manuel de la Torre.

The former architect and art history professor, who died in March at age 87, left a painting by artist and friend Mariano Rodríguez behind in Cuba when he fled the island in 1960-61. That work, La Hamaca , was allegedly seized from relatives of de la Torre by Castro-controlled individuals in 1971 and ended up with a Spanish diplomat named Jesús Navascués.

Navascués kept the painting for the next two and a half decades, until his death in 1997. His family sent La Hamaca to Sotheby's that year, where it brought $145,500 from a New York based Latin American banker and collector. That owner sent it back to Sotheby's for resale in 2001. They put it in their May 31 and June 1 sale as lot 20 and gave it a $150,000/200,000 estimate.

When the catalog appeared, Manuel de la Torres was listed in the catalog as a prior owner, with a Havana address, of course.

Manuel de la Torre, Jr., then living on Long Island , spotted the painting in a Sotheby's ad for the sale in the New York Times and informed Sotheby's of his claim to ownership. Sotheby's pulled the painting from the sale and, in an unusual move, bought the painting back from the collector for an undisclosed price. After negotiations broke down, de la Torre filed suit against Sotheby's.

Sotheby's does not dispute that Manuel de la Torre owned the painting at one point but does question how it ended up with Jesús Navascués. If it was sold by members of the de la Torre family to Navascués, that would constitute a legal passing of title. If it had been seized illegally, as the de la Torre estate claims, then Sotheby's has a legal claim against the Navascués estate, against whom they have already initiated legal proceedings.

A New York Supreme Court will have to sort this mess out, and, in the end, perhaps only the lawyers will end up pleased with the results.

* For the Maine Antique Digest / August 1, 2005
..............................................................................................................................................................................................