Jewish claims on painting stir appeal

Dutch officials say ownership ruling should be revisited

The mayor of Amsterdam has decided it is time to revisit the question of whether the city’s Stedelijk Museum should hold onto a 1909 painting by Wassily Kandinsky that had been part of a Jewish collection before it was obtained by the museum during World War II.

The Dutch Restitutions Commission, a national panel that handles claims of Nazi looting, found in 2018 that the museum could hold onto the work, “Painting With Houses,” which has been claimed by the heirs of its former Jewish owners. The restitution panel’s decision was upheld by a Dutch court.

But Amsterdam’s mayor, in a letter on Wednesday, suggested it would be appropriate for the restitution panel to reconsider the case of the painting, which has been in the museum’s collection since 1940.

The fate of the painting has been closely watched, because it is one of several in which the restitution panel has balanced the interests of cultural institutions against those of people trying to recover artworks that are said to have been seized during World War II. That formulation drew criticism from restitution experts and, in December, from a committee convened by the Dutch culture minister to study the restitution panel’s decision-making.

In the letter, Amsterdam’s mayor, Femke Halsema, and several other officials, known collectively as the College of Mayor and Alderpersons, wrote that they agreed with the findings of the committee, which argued for greater empathy in the restitution process.

“The Jewish people were deprived of their possessions, rights, dignity and, in many cases, their lives,” said the letter, according to a translation provided to The New York Times. “Insofar as something can still be restored of the great injustice done to them, we, as a society, have a moral obligation to act accordingly.”