Precious painting by Kandinsky after 70 years to Jewish heirs

The painting Blick auf Murnau mit Kirche by the famous artist Wassily Kandinsky traces back the heirs of the former Jewish owner. The artwork had been in the collection of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven for seventy years. It is striking that in 2018 it was still said that the heirs could not be determined with certainty.

Kandinsky’s painting belonged to the Jewish Johanna Margarethe Stern-Lippmann. She died in 1944 and is the (great) grandmother of the heirs to whom the painting now belongs according to the Restitutions Committee. It is concerned with the return of works of art that changed hands during the Second World War

The Restitutions Committee issues a recommendation, but the municipality of Eindhoven has promised to respect this. The painting has been in the possession of the Municipality of Eindhoven since 1951 and belongs to the collection of the Van Abbemuseum. “We will organize the transfer as soon as possible in consultation with the family.”

Request rejected
In 2015, the Van Abbemuseum received a formal claim to the artwork purchased in 1951. At the beginning of 2018, a request for restitution was rejected because it could not be established that the work had been stolen from Stern-Lippmann during the Nazi regime.

Thanks to new documents that have surfaced, the committee now thinks differently. He says that it is ‘sufficiently plausible that Margarethe Stern-Lippman lost the painting involuntarily during the Nazi regime’.

Clues
The Committee assumes that the work did not fall out of Stern-Lippmann’s possession before the occupation and does not believe that it was sold by the family after the occupation. It must have gotten out of the hands of the owner during the occupation.

Therefore, and because she was a private individual who belonged to a persecuted population because of her Jewish descent, her loss of possession is believed to have been involuntary.

The value of the painting is unknown. In 2012, another painting by Kadinsky was auctioned for $23 million in New York.

Recognition
The family in Belgium, America and the Netherlands say they are very happy. “It is a painting that hung in a prominent place with our (great) grandparents and a painting that represents much of our family’s past.”

The return of the painting by the Russian-French painter is an important moment for the family. “It will not bring back the nine immediate family members who were murdered, but it is an acknowledgment of the injustice experienced by our family and so many like us.”

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