Chicago museum returns looted Metzinger to collector's heirs

The Art Institute of Chicago in the United States has returned a Cubist painting seized from a Jewish family to that family's heirs.

The museum said on Tuesday, 22 September, it had restituted Jean Metzinger's 1913 Woman with a Fan to the heirs of Emanuel Lewenstein, according to its own announcement. Art Institute of Chicago The decision was also reported by ARTnews.

The picture is a Cubist work, a style that breaks subjects into interlocking geometric shapes, by French artist Jean Metzinger. It dates from 1913, in the years when Cubism was still new. Chicago Tribune described it as a Cubist painting.

Lewenstein was a Jewish art collector. His family was persecuted after the Nazis took power, WBEZ reported.

Evidence indicates the Metzinger was seized from the Lewenstein family and forcibly sold, according to WTTW. That history is why the work has been described as a looted Holocaust-era painting.

Restitution, the formal return of a work taken through theft or coercion, transfers legal ownership. Here it means the painting leaves the Chicago collection. Provenance, the documented chain of ownership, was central to the review.

The museum agreed to restitute the painting to Lewenstein's heirs, The Art Newspaper reported. The announcement did not set out what the heirs plan next.

What makes this stand out is the paper trail. Many wartime losses turn on a forced sale recorded as if it were voluntary. A return follows when the records show otherwise.