On Monday, the municipality of Amsterdam handed over a painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky to heirs of a Jewish couple who had sold it when they tried to escape from the Netherlands after the Nazi invasion during World War II.
The work ‘Painting with houses’ from 1909 has been in the possession of the Stedelijk Museum, which is responsible for the art collection of the city of Amsterdam, since 1940, with 95,000 items.
In a statement, the city said it had reached an agreement with the couple’s heirs, Robert Lewenstein and Irma Klein, “on the basis of mutual respect,” and resolved a property dispute that began years ago.
“As a city, we bear a great responsibility for dealing with the indescribable suffering and injustice inflicted on the Jewish population in World War II,” Deputy Mayor Touria Meliani said in the statement. “To the extent that something can be fixed, we as a society have a moral obligation to act accordingly.”
The question of whether the work should be returned had become part of a wider debate about how the Dutch authorities should assess restitution applications.
David Röell, former director of the Stedelijk, acquired the painting at an auction in 1940.
It’s unclear who decided to sell the painting, but the auction took place just months after the Nazi invasion and the museum has acknowledged that it was “possible that this was an involuntary sale”.
The Dutch Restitutions Committee, a national committee that deals with claims of Nazi looting, discovered in 2018 that the Stedelijk was allowed to keep the painting. That decision was one of several in which the restitutions panel said it was weighing the interests of cultural institutions against those of people trying to recover artworks allegedly seized during World War II.
The restitution panel determined that “Painting With Houses” previously belonged to Mr Lewenstein and Ms Klein, but also said the transfer must have been caused to some extent by “the deteriorating financial conditions the two were in well before the German invasion. ”
In addition, the jury found that although one claimant, an heir of Mrs. Klein, “has no special connection with” the painting, the work “occupies an important place” in the collection of the Stedelijk.
The panel’s ruling was confirmed by a Dutch court. But a committee convened by the Dutch Minister of Culture later made a mistake in its approach to the restitutions panel, causing two members of the restitutions committee, including the chairman, to resign.
A year ago, the mayor of Amsterdam and several other officials, collectively known as the College of Mayor and Aldermen, wrote that they agreed with the findings that argued for more empathy in the restitution process.
“The suffering inflicted on Jewish civilians in particular during World War II is unprecedented and irreversible,” they wrote, adding that society had “a moral obligation” to rectify that.
Then, last summer, Mayor Femke Halsema announced that she had entered into talks to transfer the painting to the heirs of the former owners. However, the decision to do so was subject to city council approval.
The Municipality of Amsterdam appeared to believe that whether Mr Lewenstein and Mrs Klein had experienced financial difficulties before the painting was sold was less important than the fact that the sale took place after the Nazis entered the Netherlands.
The heirs and municipality agreed that the return “does justice to the principle of return of works of art that were involuntarily taken from possession during the Second World War due to circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime,” according to a statement declaring the transfer. announced.
James Palmer of the Mondex Corporation, a company that pursues restitution claims and has assisted the heirs, said: “Today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the Lewenstein family’s journey to achieve the justice, dignity and respect they have been … rightly seeking for so many years.”
