The Pinakotheken in Munich will return a painting by the German painter Lesser Ury that was auctioned under duress during the Nazi regime in Bavaria. First reported by Monopol, the news signals a renewed push for restitution within Bavaria’s museum sector, long scrutinized for its sluggish handling of Nazi-looted art.
Ury, a German-Jewish Impressionist who died in 1931, was known for his evocative depictions of Berlin and Bavaria—nocturnal cafés, rain-drenched streets, and fleeting domestic scenes.
The Pinakothek museums have returned his painting Interior with Children (The Siblings), which was originally ownedby the Berlin banker Curt Goldschmidt.
Undone by the economic policies of the National Socialists—the Nazi Party—the family bank collapsed, forcing the Goldschmidts to auction their assets, including the Ury painting. It is believed to have sold for around 800 Reichsmarks (roughly $4,000 today); by comparison, Ury’s Berlin Impressionist scenes have fetched between $40,000 and $100,000 at auction in more recent years.
According to the museum, Goldschmidt fled to Paris in 1937, where he lived in hiding throughout the German occupation, until his death in 1947.
“Curt Goldschmidt’s fate is representative of that of many Jewish collectors and patrons. Persecution by the National Socialists robbed him of his fortune and his art collection; he could only save his life by fleeing,” Bavaria’s minister of art Markus Blume said in a statement.
It remains unclear who acquired the painting at auction in the 1930s, though its provenance records show that it resurfaced at a Cologne auction house in 1940, accompanied by a note indicating it came from “non-Aryan ownership.”
The Bavarian State Painting Collections acquired the painting in 1972. Decades later, the institution’s director, Anton Biebl, described it in a statement as a significant example of Ury’s work, and as representative of “the history of Jewish collectors and patrons in early modern Berlin.” Under Biebl, the institution has notably intensified its scrutiny of the provenance of works in its collection, with an eye toward restitution.
“The return acknowledges the painting’s dual Jewish provenance – from its creator to its collectors and its loss as a result of Nazi persecution,” he added.
