A painting by Marc Chagall, which is among 15 works stolen by the Nazis and returned by France to the heirs of looted families, was auctioned for $7.4 million on Tuesday evening organized by the house of Phillips, inside New York.
The sale took place as part of the fall auction season, which sees major companies in the sector sell hundreds of works of art for several billion dollars in a few days, in exclusive neighborhoods of Manhattan.
On November 15, 46 works were sold by Phillips for nearly $139 million. The most expensive, a monumental painting by Cy Twombly, “Without title(2005), once owned by French businessman François Pinault, went for $41.6 million.
Bought from a Polish Jewish luthier
The Painting by Chagallan oil on canvas from 1911, “The father“, was bought in 1928 by a Polish Jewish luthier, David Cender, who lost his possessions when he was forced to move to the Lodz Ghetto.
Deported to Auschwitz, where his wife and daughter were killed, this musician had survived and settled in France in 1958, where he died in 1966 without repossessing the painting. In the meantime the work had reappeared in exhibitions and Marc Chagall himself had bought it, probably between 1947 and 1953, ignoring its origin, according to Phillips and the French Ministry of Culture.
Following the death in France in 1985 of the Russian-born artist, “The father” entered the national collections in 1988, then was assigned to the Center Pompidou and deposited in the Museum of Art and History of Judaism in Paris. France. passed a law at the beginning of the year, with the unanimity of Parliament, to restore fifteen works of Jewish families looted by the Nazis.
A text”historical“And”a first step“, machine “looted works of art and books are still kept in public collections‘said the then Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot. David Cender’s heirs decided to sell the painting, a frequent scenario’when a work is returned so long after“, machine “there are multiple heirs and the work cannot be divided“Phillips vice president Jeremiah Evarts explained to AFP.
The painting, a colorful and expressive portrait of his father, was painted by Chagall the year he arrived in Paris. His works of the time are “rare“, machine “many of them were destroyed when he left Paris to return to Russia in 1914Evarts added. Phillips did not provide any information about the buyer, as is customary for auction houses.
Read also:
