WSJ: This Picasso Painting, 'Two Women at a Bar,' is among the works named in Mr. Edelman's court filings. 2014 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/The Gallery Collection/Corbis

New York art collector and dealer Asher Edelman on Friday filed a lawsuit against the Swiss company Artmentum, claiming his art-financing firm was the victim of a fraudulent deal involving the proposed sale of more than 100 works by masters such as Picasso, Monet, van Gogh and Matisse. The lawsuit, filed in New York State Supreme Court and seeking $204 million, alleges that ArtAssure, Mr. Edelman's firm, was wrongly led to believe by Artmentum and its associates last spring that Japan's Hiroshima Art Museum was trying to sell roughly $400 million in art by masters from the late 19th- and early 20th centuries. The complaint alleges the art was never actually for sale, and the financial details provided by Artmentum about the collection—including that the Hiroshima Bank owned the museum works and the Japanese government owned the majority interest in Hiroshima Bank—were false.

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The $204 million figure represents the profits ArtAssure would have made in the sale of all the works, Mr. Edelman said, adding that he never actually handed money over to Artmentum for any paintings. In addition, he said he lost "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in staff time spent investigating the deal. Some art lawyers didn't see the sum as realistic. "In my view, the damages which are requested are absurd because I don't see how he was really hurt," said New York art lawyer Peter R. Stern. 

Mr. Edelman, 74 years old, is a former corporate raider who has generated controversy in the past for his defense of his art interests. He entered the field of art finance roughly four years ago after spending decades as an art collector, museum director and gallery owner.

BERLIN—German museums are coming under growing international pressure to provide digital access to their full collections, in the wake of the discovery of a suspected plundered art trove in Munich that authorities kept secret for nearly two years. Under international norms adopted in Washington in 1998, German museums are obligated to go through their collections for works that may have been looted by the Nazis. But the museums have balked at going a step further and digitizing their collections to allow independent searches, citing budget restrictions and a lack of staff. That reluctance has for years been a source of tension within the art world, with critics alleging other motives. "They don't want to let people see what they have because they know if they put it online they'll get claims and possibly lose major paintings," Ronald Lauder, a billionaire art collector and president of the World Jewish Congress, said in an interview.

Although it doesn't know the current whereabouts of the art, the FBI believes it might still be in the Philadelphia area. So the agency will launch a publicity campaign, soliciting tips using social media and, within a few weeks, putting up digital roadside billboards in and around Philadelphia, where it believes someone may have glimpsed—or even bought—the art without knowing of the tainted origin. The museum is offering a $5 million reward for a tip leading to the recovery. The theft represents the largest property crime in U.S. history, according to the FBI.