Lloyd Webber's £30m Picasso 'seized by Nazis'

Andrew Lloyd Webber has been temporarily blocked from selling a £30 million Picasso painting after a German professor claimed it was confiscated from his family by the Nazis.

Lord Lloyd-Webber was due to sell the portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto at Christie's in New York tomorrow and donate the proceeds, expected to be more than £30 million, to his charitable foundation.

But Julius Schoeps is claiming the painting should be in his possession as he is an heir to the estate of Paul Von Mendelssohn Bartholdy, a Jewish banker from Berlinwho he says was forced to sell the painting in 1934 as a consequence of Nazi persecution.

A judge in New York has temporarily halted the sale of the 1903 painting, which depicts Barcelona anarchist de Soto sitting at a table with a half-empty glass of absinthe.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Charitable Foundation is contesting the ruling.

Should the multi-millionaire composer be successful, the sale will go ahead as scheduled as part of Christie's sale of Impressionist and modern art.

If Professor Schoeps wins the case, the painting will be withdrawn from Christie's and Lord Lloyd-Webber will not be able to take advantage of the current red-hot art market conditions to raise millions for theatre and music charities.

A spokesman for the Lloyd Webber foundation today dismissed the professor's legal challenge.

He said: "The foundation purchased the picture in good faith in 1995 and it has received an enormous amount of publicity.

"It has been exhibited publicly several times at the National Gallery as well as the Royal Academy of Arts in London and the New York Fine Arts Fair.

"During the 11 years the charity has owned the picture no one has raised any questions about the ownership."

It is understood Professor Schoeps will argue that as a result of the Nazi's anti-Semitism, Mr Von Mendelssohn Bartholdy was forced to sell his collection of Van Gogh, Manet and Picasso paintings in a depressed art market. When he died in 1935 his net worth was a 10th of what it had been.

The de Soto painting entered New York from Switzerland in 1935. Although it has been resold four times on the New

York art market, Professor Schoeps is expected to argue that recent US laws relating to the spoliation of art mean he can reclaim ownership. Lord Lloyd-Webber bought the picture for £19.3million from New Yorkers Donald and Jean Stralem at Sotheby's in New York in 1995. At the time it was the highest price paid for a painting at auction in five years and the highest for a Picasso.

Professor Schoeps is a great-great-grand nephew of German composer Felix Mendelssohn.