A painting entitled "The Father" by Marc Chagall will go on sale next month at the Phillips auction house in New York. The piece was among 15 works stolen by Nazis and eventually returned by France to the heirs of the affected families.
The 1911 oil-on-canvas set to be auctioned on 15 November, was purchased in 1928 by a Polish-Jewish violin maker, David Cender, who lost his possessions when he was forced to move to the Łódź ghetto following the Nazi invasion of Poland.
Eventually deported to Auschwitz where his wife and daughter were killed, the violin maker however survived and moved to France in 1958. He died in 1966 without regaining possession of the painting – now estimated to be worth between €6million and €8million.
According to Phillips auctioneers and the French culture ministry, in the years following the war, the work had reappeared in exhibitions and it turned out that it was Marc Chagall himself who had bought it – probably between 1947 and 1953 – without knowing its provenance.
After the Russian-born artist died in France in 1985, "The Father" was taken into France's national collection in 1988. It was then assigned to the Pompidou Centre and finally given to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.
Comme 14 autres œuvres spoliées par les nazis, "Le Père" de #Chagall va être restitué prochainement à ses ayants-droit. Pascale Samuel, conservatrice au mahJ, déroule l’histoire de ce tableau, que vous pouvez admirer dans nos salles avant sa #restitution. https://t.co/zYkGoXRkmW pic.twitter.com/LHRiZnv1jh
— mahJ (@mahjparis) March 7, 2022
2022 French legislation to return looted art
At the beginning of the year, the French parliament unanimously adopted a law allowing for the return of 15 artworks originally belonging to Jewish families that were looted by the Nazis.
The then culture minister, Roselyne Bachelot, had called it an historic first step, noting that other looted works of art and books were still kept in public collections.
Cender's heirs decided to sell the painting – a common scenario when works are returned to families, long after they were stolen.
According to Phillips' deputy chairman Jeremiah Evarts, that's because "you've got multiple heirs and the work itself cannot be split."
Chagall painted the portrait of his father the year he arrived in Paris. He said he was electrified by the modernism of the city at the time and his works from that period are rare.
"Many of them were destroyed when he left Paris to return to Russia in 1914," Evarts said. He added that "The Father" was likely to attract interest from museums and collectors.
The sale will take place during the autumn auction season in New York.
(with wires)
