Legal battle over Modigliani painting rumbles onץ

The powerful art-dealing Nahmad family was dealt another blow in a long-running legal battle over the ownership of Amedeo Modigliani’s Seated Man with a Cane (1918),

The lawsuit has continued for years as the Nahmad family maneuvered to keep its ownership secret. In 2011 Stettiner’s grandson, Phillipe Maestracci, sued Helly Nahmad and his gallery where the painting had been exhibited to recover the work, which he estimates is now worth $25 million. But the Nahmads said the painting was actually owned by the Panamanian Corporation, International Art Center (IAC). The case gained worldwide attention in 2016 when the Panama papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, revealed that IAC was a shell company wholly owned by David Nahmad.

Helly Nahmad's and his New York gallery attorney Richard Golub says Seated Man with a Cane is not the same painting Stettiner owned.