Madrid museum has right to keep Nazi-looted Pissarro, says US court

Appeal decision unanimous but one judge says she had hoped Spain would voluntarily return piece to Jewish family

A US appeal court has said that a Madrid museum has the right to retain a painting by Camille Pissarro that was stolen by the Nazis from a Jewish family, in the latest twist in a decades-long legal battle that has pitted the Spanish institution against the heirs of Jewish refugees.

In a decision published on Tuesday, the ninth US circuit court of appeals in Pasadena, California, said the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum may keep the 1897 French impressionist work, Rue Saint-Honoré in the Afternoon, Effect of Rain.