Art treasurers ordered returned to American who fled Hungary

ARMONK, N.Y. - Ten paintings, including an El Greco and a Courbet, worth an estimated $20 million were ordered returned to an American woman whose family lost them to the Nazis in World War II.

Martha Nierenberg, 76, of Armonk, N.Y., who with her husband founded Dansk Design housewares, won her lawsuit Friday in Budapest Municipal Court. The Hungarian government has until Nov. 4 to appeal and a spokesman for the treasury, Zoltan Molnar, said that was likely.

Nierenberg's grandfather, Baron Maurice Herzog, owned the collection before the war and left it to his three children, including Nierenberg's mother. In 1944, as Nierenberg's Jewish family fled Hungary, the best pieces were grabbed by the Nazis and sent to Germany.

At the end of the war, most of the art was returned to Hungary, which soon after fell under communist domination. Since Nierenberg's mother was in the United States, the pieces that had been left to her were sent to major government museums in Budapest under a ''safekeeping'' law.

''It's wonderful that the country of my birth is now democratic enough that the courts can come to such a conclusion even when the government is the loser,'' Nierenberg said as she prepared to leave for Budapest on Monday to claim the art treasures.

In addition to the expected Hungarian government appeal, a law forbidding export of fine art could mean Nierenberg's collection must stay in Hungary, vastly reducing its value.

''I will go and see them happily,'' she said, setting aside, for the time, the issues of legal appeals and export restrictions.

Among the paintings awarded to Nierenberg was ''Annunciation to Joachim Among the Shepherds'' by Lucas Cranach the Elder, which Nierenberg said was her favorite when visited her grandfather's museum-like estate as a child.

''I would love to have that painting,'' she said a year ago, when she filed her lawsuit. On Monday she said, ''If I could just take one back home to New York, it would be the Cranach.''

In addition to it, the El Greco and the Courbet, there is a painting by Van Dyck and one - probably the most valuable, Nierenberg says - that is attributed to either Velasquez or Alfonso Cano.

Nierenberg accused the government of stalling in negotiations, ''just waiting for me to give up, to go away, to die.''

On Monday, she said triumphantly, ''I have a cold but I'm in great shape.''

The lawsuit was filed with the help of the Commission for Art Recovery of the World Jewish Congress, which is working in several European countries for the return of looted art.

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On the Net: www.wjc-artrecovery.org