The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam does not have to return a painting by Wassily Kandinsky to the relatives of the former owner, the Amsterdam court decided on Wednesday.
The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam does not have to return a painting by Wassily Kandinsky to the relatives of the former owner, the Amsterdam court decided on Wednesday.
In recent years, the Stedelijk Museum has contributed to a national investigation into the provenance of works of art. This would show, among other things, that Kandinsky’s Bild mit Häusern from 1909 is a form of looted art.
In 2016, the Restitutions Committee decided that the museum could keep the work. The next of kin still went to court to overturn the committee’s decision.
However, the court finds the heirs wrong on all counts. “It is important that the judge’s assessment framework is legally limited. This concerns a binding recommendation from the Restitutions Committee, whereby both the municipality and the heirs themselves have indicated prior to the investigation that they will accept the binding recommendation of the committee.”
No evidence of forcible sale by Nazis
The City of Amsterdam bought the painting at an auction in Amsterdam on October 9, 1940, after which it was included in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum.
Former owner Emanuel Lewenstein is said to have been forced by the Nazis to auction Bild mit Häusern. However, that has not been proven. The advancing Nazi regime may have been decisive to auction the work, the committee acknowledged, but more factors would have played a role.
According to the commission, the owners were already in a deteriorated financial situation before the German invasion. “In the Committee’s opinion, this offers a less strong basis for restitution,” the committee said at the time.
