Van Gogh auction challenged over Nazi-era sale

Sotheby’s is in talks with the heirs of a German Jewish family over a Vincent van Gogh painting listed for auction in New York on 18 November. The family has asked the auction house to withdraw the work, arguing that Nazi persecution forced its sale in 1936.

The Art Newspaper has put the estimated hammer price for *Châtaigniers en fleurs*, or *Blossoming Chestnut Trees*, at around $180 million. Sotheby’s catalogue lists the estimate as available on request.

The family’s lawyer, Gunnar Schnabel, has asked Sotheby’s to show that the 1936 sale was at market value and would have taken place without Nazi pressure, according to The New York Times, as reported by The Times of Israel. The heirs link the sale to the family’s circumstances under persecution.

In October, a Sotheby’s spokesperson told The Art Newspaper that the auction house was satisfied, based on its research, that the family had been free to dispose of the painting at all times. In a more recent statement to the BBC, reproduced by NCIJ Network, Sotheby’s said its research had not established that the work was sold under duress. It said it was in dialogue with the family and working towards a mutually satisfactory resolution.

Sotheby’s catalogue says publisher Samuel Fischer acquired the painting in 1909 and that Brigitte and Gottfried Bermann-Fischer inherited it in 1934. It says the work had been on deposit with Paul Cassirer in Amsterdam since 1932 or 1933 and was acquired through the dealer by Henriette and Marcel Kapferer in 1936.

The painting’s presence in Amsterdam before the Nazis came to power does not settle whether the later sale was voluntary. In another case in 2021, Düsseldorf agreed to return a Franz Marc painting that a Jewish owner had sold in New York after fleeing Nazi Germany. A German restitution commission found that the location of that sale did not negate the role of persecution.