Art museum returning painting to heirs of Jewish owner after it was seized by Nazis
The Art Institute of Chicago has agreed to restitute a painting in its collection to the heirs of a Jewish art collector who was persecuted by the Nazis in occupied Netherlands.
The museum announced this week that it will return Jean Metzinger’s Woman with a Fan to the heirs of Jewish Dutch art collector Emanuel Lewenstein.
The museum said new provenance research established that the 1913 Cubist painting belonged to the Lewenstein Collection.
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Records show the work was sold at auction in Amsterdam in October 1940, months after Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands.
The museum now considers that transaction a forced sale linked to Nazi persecution.
The Art Institute acquired the painting in 1959 but continued investigating its ownership history.
A research exchange with Mondex Corporation uncovered information that filled key gaps in the painting’s prewar and wartime provenance, museum officials said in a press release.
Based on those findings, the museum concluded that restitution to the Lewenstein heirs was appropriate.
Metzinger was a leading Cubist artist whose colorful, geometric compositions emphasized fragmented forms and shifting spatial planes.
Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat praised the museum’s collaboration with Mondex and described the return as an example of the provenance and restitution practices promoted by the Washington Principles and Terezin Declaration.
The Art Institute said provenance research remains an institutional priority as it reviews the history of works across its collection.