An important collection of modern art amassed by Werner Merzbacher, a Swiss collector who died in 2024, is currently the subject of a legal battle centered around the late businessman’s will and who really gets the right to control the paintings he owned.
Merzbacher, who generated his fortune through a fur business and currency trading, gained many of the artworks in his possession through his grandfather-in-law, Bernhard Mayer. His collection included a range of high-quality Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, Fauvist, and German Expressionist artworks, with artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Max Beckmann, and Alexej von Jawlensky represented in his holdings. He appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list in 1996 and 2014.
Since 2018, much of the collection he and his wife, Gabriele Merzbacher-Mayer, stewarded has been on long-term loan to the Kunsthaus Zurich, one of Switzerland’s most important museums. At the time, the museum called the loan “a gesture of gratitude to Zurich and Switzerland.” The collection is reportedly worth 600 million francs, or roughly $742 million.
But, according to the Swiss publication NZZ, there may be reason to think that such a gesture of gratitude could soon be no more.
As NZZ reports, Merzbacher’s fortune and art collection are being vigorously debated in court, with much of the discussion centered around businessman’s will. Per NZZ, the will was “repeatedly amended,” allegedly in a way that benefited his asset manager, who was not named in the article. “Instead of the estate being divided three ways (among the two children and the descendants of the deceased daughter), it was to be split four ways,” NZZ reported. “Consequently, [the asset manager] stood to inherit a sum in the hundreds of millions.”
Responding to claims that she unfairly profited from Merzbacher, the unnamed asset manager told NZZ that she had operated in ways “consistent with standard Swiss practice.”
Five months before his death, while battling cancer, Merzbacher allegedly rewrote his will by hand. Merzbacher’s heirs and Merzbacher-Mayer have claimed that the collector was in a “dire state of health” at the time and therefore may not have understood the document he penned. If she and the heirs are successful in pursuing their case, the will could be invalidated.
Another issue is Merzbacher’s agreement with the Kunsthaus Zurich. NZZ reports that, according to that agreement, Merzbacher-Mayer has the rights to the works in the loan—but she does not own them. If the deal surrounding the inheritance changes, the collection loan could face further discussion should the case head to trial in September.
The collection is currently on loan to the Kunsthaus Zurich through the end of 2038. If the agreement remains in place, it will auto-renew for three-year-long periods.
It is not the only private collection loan to the Kunsthaus Zurich that has recently faced difficulties. The collection of E. G. Bührle, which includes artworks that some have claimed once belonged to Jewish collectors who were persecuted by the Nazis, has been the subject of mainstream scrutiny in Switzerland. Following protests, including one from artist Miriam Cahn, who removed her work from the Kunsthaus Zurich collection, the E. G. Bührle Collection Foundation reached a settlement with the heirs in 2025.
While the collection remains on view at the Kunsthaus Zurich and is expected to do so until the contract for it expires in 2034, the E. G. Bührle Collection Foundation changed its guidelines so that the works could be loaned beyond Zurich, raising the question of whether the foundation will continue to keep the collection at the museum.
Asked about the future of both loans, the museum told NZZ, “We cannot speculate on hypothetical scenarios far in the future.” A museum spokesperson did not immediately respond to ARTnews’s request for comment.
