The long-running worlds of New York real estate money and supermarket money are colliding in court, as the Zeckendorf family sues heirs to the Weis grocery fortune over a Pierre Soulages painting that allegedly vanished from a Beekman Place living room nearly half a century ago.
In a new filing in New York State Supreme Court, the Zeckendorfs accuse the Weis heirs of auctioning off a Soulages canvas the family says was stolen in or around 1977. Instead of demanding the work back, the complaint asks the court to hand over the proceeds from last fall's Christie's auction, roughly $5 million, which the painting fetched when it crossed the block. According to the suit, the piece once hung in Marion Zeckendorf's Beekman Place apartment before it disappeared.
What the lawsuit alleges
The complaint says the Soulages work simply vanished from the Zeckendorf home "in or around 1977," with no trace until it resurfaced decades later in the hands of the Weis family. The Zeckendorfs claim the Weis heirs leaned on a shaky provenance trail to justify selling the work, and they zero in on a 1984 invoice that the defense has put forward.
In a detail that feels tailor-made for art-world drama, the Zeckendorfs allege "the purported Niveau invoice is the wrong color," arguing that this supposedly contemporaneous document is actually a fabrication, according to The Real Deal. That is not the kind of color commentary most auction houses are looking for.
Provenance and the Christie's sale
Christie's catalogue for "The Collection of Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis" lists the painting's provenance as including "Mme William Zeckendorf, New York, 1959," explicitly tying the work back to the Zeckendorf household. The work was offered as part of that Weis collection and realized $4,955,000 at auction, according to Christie's.
Who’s named in the suit
Plaintiffs in the case include William Lie Zeckendorf, Arthur William Zeckendorf, James Nicholson and Leslie Nicholson, according to the complaint. On the other side are Jonathan Weis, CEO of Weis Markets, and his sisters Jennifer Weis and Colleen Ross Weis.
The Zeckendorfs are not asking to pull the Soulages off some collector's wall. Instead, they want the court to divert the Christie's proceeds to them, contending that the Weis heirs never had good title to the work in the first place, as reported by The Real Deal.
Why it matters
The fight pits a storied New York development clan against heirs of a Mid-Atlantic grocery dynasty, with the outcome hinging on the kind of fine-grain provenance details that often decide high-stakes art restitution battles.
Public filings show the Weis family controls about 61 percent of Weis Markets and that the chain operates roughly 202 stores, according to Weis Markets' 2025 10-K. Recent market-data services put the company's market capitalization near $2 billion, per Macrotrends, underscoring how much corporate wealth sits behind the defendants.
Legal stakes and next steps
By going after the money instead of the painting, the Zeckendorfs have framed the case squarely around one question: can anyone down the line pass along good title to an artwork that, they say, was stolen decades ago?
The Weis side is expected to challenge both the claim that the work was stolen and the allegation that the 1984 invoice is bogus. The case will now move into document discovery and pretrial motions, where emails, invoices and decades-old paperwork will be picked over before a court decides whether the Zeckendorf family is entitled to the nearly $5 million in auction proceeds.
