Kandinsky painting that was auctioned during WWII is returned to Jewish heirs

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/ [login to see] /kandinsky-painting-that-was-auctioned-during-wwii-is-returned-to-jewish-heirs
A prized painting by Russian master Wassily Kandinsky that was sold under duress during World War II has been returned to the descendants of its former Jewish owners.

The oil painting, Bild mit Häusern (Painting with Houses), was just one of a treasured art collection inherited by Robert Lewenstein and his wife Irma Klein, which, at one point, also included works by Van Gogh, Renoir and Rembrandt. But the pair was forced to auction off the Kandinsky painting in October 1940 as they fled the Nazis five months after they invaded the Netherlands.

Records show the director of Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum bought the Kandinsky for a fraction of its value at the time. Het Parool reports: "He paid 160 guilders for it – a pittance of the original value at the time, 2000 to 3000 guilders."

The 1909 painting of a figure in a colorful, abstracted landscape, now has an estimated value of more than $20 million.

Its transfer to Lewenstein's heirs on Monday puts an end to a nine-year dispute.