The Art Institute of Chicago says it will return Jean Metzinger’s 1913 painting “Woman with a Fan” to heirs of Jewish owner Emmanuel Lewenstein. The Nazis coerced its sale at auction in the occupied Netherlands in 1940; it has since been removed from public display.
Metzinger painted the work in Paris in 1913. Paul Citroen bought it in 1919 and sold it to his relative Lewenstein in 1928. After Lewenstein’s death, his widow is believed to have sent it to Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum for safekeeping. Missing after the 1940 auction, the painting resurfaced in the Dutch art market in the 1950s and reached the Art Institute in 1959 as a donation from Mr. and Mrs. Sigmund Kunstadter.
The Art Institute had investigated the painting’s provenance for years, but work with Toronto-based Mondex Corporation helped connect it to the Lewensteins. Infrared imaging reportedly revealed Citroen’s name pencilled on the back, giving researchers a link to the family.
