Apologies for the lateness of this link. Bloomberg reported last week on this Corot painting that will be featured in a June sale.
“Jeune femme a la fontaine” (Young Woman at a Well) is estimated to fetch as much as 1.2 million pounds ($1.8 million) in the June 2 London sale, Sotheby’s said in a statement sent by e-mail. Previous owners included a patron of Claude Monet, and a porcelain-factory owner from Limoges. It was acquired by the Hamburg banker Eduard Ludwig Behrens in 1889.
Georg Behrens, who inherited the painting, was arrested by the Nazis in 1938 and imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp after the family banking firm was seized. He was forced to pawn all his possessions to the Nazi state to obtain his exit visa for Belgium. He never retrieved the painting, and on the advice of the Dutch Restitutions Committee, it was returned in 2008 to his heirs.
“The Netherlands was very cooperative — it all happened very fast,” said Ingolf Rosemann of Babeg GmbH, the Berlin- based research company that is assisting the four heirs, some of whom are elderly, in recovering looted property. The heirs have asked not to be identified by name, he said.
Nazi-Looted Corot Painting to be Sold by Sotheby’s (Bloomberg)
