Nazi-looted Kandinsky from Amsterdam family sold for almost €32m

A painting by Wassily Kandinsky looted from a Jewish family in Amsterdam has sold at Christie’s in London for £27 million, (€32 million), broadcaster NOS reported.

Kandinsky painted Das bunte Leben (The colourful life) in Paris in 1907. Emanuel and Hedwig Lewenstein, who ran a sewing machine factory on the Dam, bought it in 1927. Their collection also included works by Jan Toorop, Jozef Israëls, and Jean Metzinger.

The painting was auctioned shortly after the German occupation began and was bought by Jewish collector Sal Slijper. His family later sold it to the Bayerische Landesbank, which loaned it permanently to the Lenbachhaus museum in Munich, where it hung for decades.

Researchers found that in 1940 a museum employee, acting for an unknown person, had the work taken to the auction house by courier. They said there were many indications the Nazis had seized it.

In 2023, the German public prosecution department classified the painting as looted art and the bank returned it to the Lewensteins’ heirs.

That same year, the heirs sold another Kandinsky, Bild mit Häusern, for more than €60 million. Amsterdam city council returned that work after a years-long dispute. It had hung in the Stedelijk Museum until February 2022.