El Greco Painting (Photo Credits: X / Twitter)
In a Manhattan Federal Court complaint against the renowned auction house, Paul Philippe of Romania, who goes by the title Prince Paul and has battled for decades to be acknowledged as the legitimate heir to the nation’s former monarchy, outlined the vile story of his Uncle Michael’s claimed royal deceit.
Philippe argued in the case that the renowned artwork was the exclusive property of the previous king and that the Romanian government had no right to claim it because it was stolen and its history was made up.
How The Painting Was Stolen
Carol and Michael were King Carol’s two sons. The king had to be married again when his father dissolved the marriage that birthed the older boy.
For years, monarch Carol’s eldest child was rejected as illegitimate, yet Michael later became “the puppet king of Romania’s Soviet-dominated government.”
In November 1947, the Nazis allowed Michael to covertly obtain a number of family assets, including Saint Sébastien and forty-one additional pieces of art, as a reward for his loyalty.
Philippe claims that Michael allowed his father to think that the communist government had seized the items.