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The painting picture with houses by the Russian painter Kandinsky has been sold to a private collector for more than 60 million euros. That writes NRC.
The work from 1909 hung in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam until a year ago. Then it was returned to the heirs of the last Jewish owner, who owned the canvas until 1940. The heirs have now sold the canvas of the Russian painter (1866-1944) through an auction house.
The sale price makes this Kandinsky the most valuable painting ever returned to heirs in the Netherlands.
Years of disagreement
About the rightful owner of picture with houses there has been a disagreement for years between the Lewenstein family and the municipality of Amsterdam, which bought the work from the family in 1940.
The oil painting came into the possession of the Lewenstein couple in 1923, who at the time had a sewing machine factory on Dam Square. After their death, the household effects went to their two children. The work was probably owned by their son’s partner in 1940, who sold the painting to the municipality for 160 guilders, a price well below market value.
The sale was made under pressure from the Nazis, the heirs said. As early as 2013, they therefore demanded that the painting be returned. But the Restitutions Committee, which advises on Nazi looted art, ruled in 2018 that the municipality did not have to relinquish the painting. This was endorsed by the judge in December 2020.
In 2021, the municipality of Amsterdam decided to return the work to the family, and the canvas was actually handed over at the beginning of 2022. That decision had to do with a critical report on the working methods of the Restitutions Committee. The municipality did not want to wait for a new opinion from that committee and took a decision in anticipation of this.
In museum
When the work was returned to the family, the heirs told Het Password hoping that the canvas would one day be displayed in a museum again. That chance now seems small in the short term, since a private collector has bought the work.
The Stedelijk Museum does not want to comment on the sale of the work, the municipality of Amsterdam says that they are no longer concerned with the painting.
