Chicago Museum Returns Nazi-Looted Painting to Heirs of Dutch Jewish Owner

Shiryn Ghermezian

Outside the Art Institute of Chicago. Photo: Diego Delso via Wikimedia Commons

The Art Institute of Chicago is returning a 1913 painting to the family of its original Jewish owner after it was sold by force during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands, the museum announced on Tuesday.

“Woman with a Fan” by Cubist theorist and artist Jean Metzinger will be returned to the heirs of Jewish art collector Emanuel Lewenstein, who died in 1930. The colorful painting depicts a woman’s face and clothing in “a succession of basic shapes set in distinct spatial planes,” according to the museum.

The Art Institute of Chicago said that since acquiring the painting in 1959, it has “consistently conducted research into the painting’s provenance.” Finally, with research help from the Mondex Corporation, the museum discovered new information revealing that “Woman with a Fan” was part of Lewenstein’s art collection, which Nazis forced the sale of in Amsterdam.

“Based on this new understanding of the painting’s history, the Art Institute concluded that it should be returned to the Lewenstein heirs,” the museum said.

“This return reflects our commitment to take decisive action when new research clarifies the provenance of a work,” said Dr. Jacques Schuhmacher, the museum’s executive director of provenance research. “Our collaboration and shared research with Mondex were crucial to returning this painting to the Lewenstein heirs.”

Founded in 1993, the Modex Corporation is a Toronto-based company that aids in the restitution of looted art and other cultural artifacts forcibly taken during the Holocaust. It was founded in 1993, five years before the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.

“It is gratifying to see this painting returned to the Lewenstein family heirs, and the Art Institute of Chicago is to be congratulated for being an invaluable partner in making this return a reality,” said Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, counsel for Mondex and the architect of the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art as well as the 2009 Terezin Declaration on Holocaust Era Assets and Related Issues. “Their proactive and collaborative work with the Mondex Corporation is truly a model for how a museum should apply research, provenance, and restitution practices,” he added. 

The Art Institute of Chicago said provenance research is an “institutional priority” at the museum, and its department dedicated to such research is one of the largest of its kind in the United States.

Born in The Netherlands, Lewenstein had a vast art collection that was managed by his wife and then inherited, after her passing in 1937, by their two children, Robert and Wilhelmine Lewenstein. When Robert and Wilhelmine fled The Netherlands to escape Nazi persecution, their family’s art collection was forced to remain behind. In October 1940, the collection was taken and offered for sale at the Frederik Muller auction house in Amsterdam, which was known at the time for organizing the sales of artwork looted by the Nazis during the war, according to the Modex Corporation. The company said the family’s artwork was forcibly sold, and it remains unclear who brought the Lewenstein collection to the auction and received proceeds for its sale. The painting was reportedly donated to the Art Institute of Chicago by Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund Kunstadter.