An independent German commission on Tuesday recommended that a painting by Wassily Kandinsky currently owned by the Bavarian state bank be returned to the heirs of a Jewish family that originally owned the piece of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission can be called on in cases of disputes over the restitution of Nazi-confiscated cultural property, especially Jewish property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the case of the heirs of Hedwig Lewenstein Weyermann and Irma Lewenstein Klein versus Bayerische Landesbank, the commission advised that the 1907 painting \u201cThe Colorful Life\u201d by Russian artist Kandinsky be returned to the heirs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission\u2019s recommendations are non-binding but are mostly followed by the parties once they have agreed to call on it to resolve the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The large tempera painting shows a group of colorfully clad people on a lawn, some eating or playing music, while others seem to be dancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its conclusion, the commission says that from November 1927, the painting belonged to Hedwig and Emanuel Albert Lewenstein, a Jewish couple living in Amsterdam, and was part of their extensive art collection. The painting was auctioned off on Oct. 9, 1940 \u2014 just a few months after Germany\u2019s Wehrmacht occupied the Netherlands \u2014 at an auction house in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the auction, the piece had been on loan from the Lewenstein family to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, from where it was taken on Sept. 5, 1940 by order of the art dealer Abraham Mozes Querido, the commission said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDespite years of research,\u201d the commission said it was unable to trace the path of the painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt cannot be proven on whose initiative the painting was sold as part of the Lewenstein estate to the auction house Frederik Muller & Co. at the auction,\u201d the commission said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that the art piece was acquired by Salomon B. Slijper, whose widow sold it to Bayerische Landesbank in 1972 for 900,000 Dutch guilders. Since then, it has been on loan to the Staedtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau museum in Munich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time of the 1940 auction, the children of Hedwig and Emanuel Albert Lewenstein \u2014 Robert Gotschalk Lewenstein and Wilhelmine Helene Lewenstein \u2014 had emigrated to the United States and to then-Portuguese colony of Mozambique, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only Irma Lewenstein Klein remained in Amsterdam \u2014 she was Robert\u2019s separated wife. She survived the Nazi occupation and World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the dispute over the painting\u2019s ownership, the Bayerische Landesbank suggested that Irma Lewenstein Klein had put up the painting for auction in connection with her divorce settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The claimants, however, were of the opinion that the auction of the painting took place in connection with the Netherland\u2019s occupation by the Nazis and the systematic persecution of the Jewish population that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After studying the historic evidence, the commission concluded \u201cthe painting was seized as a result of persecution. The Lewenstein family and Irma Lewenstein Klein were persecuted as Jews\u201d from the beginning of the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is no evidence to support the assumption that Irma Lewenstein Klein arranged for the painting to be handed over of her own free will,\u201d the statement added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were no immediate reactions by the heirs or the Bavarian state bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An independent German commission on Tuesday recommended that a painting by Wassily Kandinsky currently owned by the Bavarian state bank be returned to the heirs of a Jewish family that originally owned the piece of art. The commission can be called on in cases of disputes over the restitution of Nazi-confiscated cultural property, especially Jewish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":35148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,12],"tags":[1045,7358,10232,7960,287,10767,12785,6157,10339,5455,66,5910,6259,10231,7225,1134,3601,6657,12371,5058,3773,286,745,9374,6544,5217,12778,9262,5251,3954,36],"class_list":["post-35146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-world-news","tag-amsterdam","tag-bank","tag-bavarian","tag-case","tag-children","tag-conflict","tag-dispute","tag-divorce","tag-dutch","tag-family","tag-germany","tag-initiative","tag-jews","tag-kandinsky","tag-loan","tag-mozambique","tag-muller","tag-munich","tag-museum","tag-music","tag-nazi","tag-netherlands","tag-painting","tag-population","tag-property","tag-russian","tag-seized","tag-united-states","tag-war","tag-will","tag-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}