{"id":7065412,"date":"2026-09-24T02:41:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T02:41:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/this-cubist-painting-with-a-mysterious-provenance-hung-in-the-art-institute-of-chicago-for-decades-now-the-museum-will-return-it-to-its-rightful-jewish-heirs\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T02:41:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T02:41:19","slug":"this-cubist-painting-with-a-mysterious-provenance-hung-in-the-art-institute-of-chicago-for-decades-now-the-museum-will-return-it-to-its-rightful-jewish-heirs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7065412","title":{"rendered":"This Cubist Painting With a Mysterious Provenance Hung in the Art Institute of Chicago for Decades. Now, the Museum Will Return It to Its Rightful Jewish Heirs"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Infrared imaging links the 20th-century Jean Metzinger work to a collector whose pieces were forcibly auctioned under Nazi orders during World War II<\/h2>\n
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Christian Thorsberg<\/a><\/p>\n

| Daily Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"Woman\n <\/picture>
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Jean Metzinger\u2019s\u00a0Woman With a Fan <\/em>(1913) was gifted to the Art Insitute of Chicago by Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund Kunstadter.
\n \u00a9 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ ADAGP, Paris<\/span>
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The Art Institute of Chicago announced this week that it will return an early 20th-century painting to the family of its former owner, after concluding that the artwork had been forcibly sold during World War II under the influence of the Nazi Party. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Woman With a Fan<\/a><\/em>, painted in 1913 in Paris by Jean Metzinger, was an important early work during the city\u2019s burgeoning Cubist movement. But records detailing the piece\u2019s subsequent provenance, particularly in wartime, were incomplete. Now, new research\u2014led by an infrared analysis of the painting\u2019s backside\u2014offers the clearest proof yet that it was held by, and then seized from, a Jewish art collector. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis return reflects our commitment to take decisive action when new research clarifies the provenance of a work,\u201d Jacques Schuhmacher, the executive director of the museum\u2019s provenance research department, says in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Did you know? A landmark decision<\/p>\n

Missing since its theft in Amsterdam in 1945, Giacomo Ceruti\u2019s Portrait of a Lady<\/em>\u2014one of more than 1,100 works once in the collection of Dutch Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker\u2014was spotted last year in an Argentinian real estate listing. A judge recently ordered<\/a> that the painting be returned to its true owners<\/a>.\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In May 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, where Woman With a Fan<\/em> was part of the collection of Emanuel Lewenstein<\/a>, a Jewish art collector and the director of a successful sewing machine company. Just three months later, the painting was among more than 150 artworks\u2014including many from the famous Goudstikker<\/a> collection and some that had been on loan to the Stedelijk Museum<\/a>\u2014sold at the Frederik Muller auction house in Amsterdam<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo answer has been found to the question [of] who brought the Lewenstein collection to the auction, nor do we know who received the proceeds,\u201d reads the website<\/a> of the Mondex Corporation, a Toronto-based company that focuses on the restitution of art looted during the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

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Jean Metzinger\u2019s\u00a0Woman With a Fan <\/em>(1913) was gifted to the Art Insitute of Chicago by Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund Kunstadter.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York \/ ADAGP, Paris<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The painting\u2019s location was not pinpointed again until the mid-1950s. In 1959, the Art Institute bought it from a gallery in New York, and it has hung in the Chicago museum\u2014with the exception of trips to Iowa and Texas during an exhibition in 1985 and \u201986\u2014ever since. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Art Institute of Chicago is home to one of the world\u2019s largest art provenance research departments<\/a>. Using infrared imaging, historians identified a faint name written in pencil on the back of the painting: that of Paul Citroen, an early 20th-century art dealer. This crystallized the history of the painting\u2019s early exchanges<\/a>: Citroen had acquired the piece from Metzinger\u2019s gallery in 1919, then sold it in 1928 to Lewenstein, his cousin. Though Lewenstein died in 1930, his collection remained under the control of his wife and children until the Nazi occupation. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it\u2019s appropriate to view the sale as a result of Nazi persecution and therefore a forced sale: It was either confiscated or sold under pressure,\u201d Schuhmacher tells the Art Newspaper<\/a><\/em>\u2019s Catherine Hickley.<\/p>\n

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The ownership of\u00a0Russian War Prisoner<\/em>\u00a0(1916), by Egon Schiele, remains disputed, though an appellate court sided with the museum this month in declaring its 2023 seizure by authorities illegitimate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Art Institute of Chicago<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The museum\u2019s decision to return the painting comes as the fate of another work in its collection\u2014Russian War Prisoner<\/a><\/em>, a 1916 watercolor and pencil drawing by Egon Schiele\u2014is debated in court. The piece, believed to have been stolen by Nazis, was seized by investigators<\/a> in 2023 though permitted to remain at the museum. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The Art Institute has refuted<\/a> officials\u2019 claims to the drawing. Last week, an appellate court sided with the museum<\/a>, concluding that the seizure was ordered on improper grounds. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are confident in our extensive research, which indicates very different facts for each of the two works,\u201d the museum said in a statement<\/a> to the Chicago Sun-Times<\/em>\u2019 Ambar Col\u00f3n. \u201cEvidence indicates the Metzinger painting was seized from the family and forcibly sold, while evidence related to the Schiele drawing indicates it was never seized, stayed within the family and was ultimately sold by the family more than ten years after the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

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