Museum returns Matisse to Jewish family who fled from Nazis
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Odalisque by Matisse was sold by the Stern family as they struggled for money after fleeing Nazi Germany
A museum in Amsterdam has returned a painting by Henri Matisse to the heirs of a German Jew who sold the work as his family fled the Nazis.
The work, Odalisque, from 1920-21 and part of the acclaimed series inspired by Matisse’s travels in North Africa, has been returned after a ruling by the Dutch “restitutions committee” that the Stedelijk Museum had benefited from “involuntary loss of possession due to circumstances directly related to the Nazi regime”.
Albert Stern, a German-Jewish textile entrepreneur, sold the painting to the museum in 1941 as he and his family attempted to raise money after fleeing Nazi Germany to the Netherlands.
“The family fled to the Netherlands in 1937 and subsequently made several attempts to leave Europe. Conditions for the family had deteriorated to such an extent that they were forced to sell their belongings,” said the committee, which issued its first ruling in 2008.
The family was rich in Germany and renowned in cultural circles, hosting concerts by the young violinist Yehudi Menuhin in Haus Stern in Berlin. The Nazis took everything and the Sterns failed to escape Europe and were arrested in the occupied Netherlands.
He died in the Laufen concentration camp in January 1945. His two sons, Erich and Rudolf, were murdered at Auschwitz and Buchenwald, in October 1944 and March 1945 respectively.
His wife Marie survived and moved to Britain after the war with Rudolf’s two children, who survived deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp aged just five and 16 months old in April 1944.
“The return of the Matisse is a moving and overwhelming moment for us all. Our grandparents loved art and music and theatre, it was the centre of their lives,” said a family statement.
“The family has carried the scars of its unbearable and tragic history alone. Now, finally, this is being acknowledged. The painting is being returned to us, the rightful owners, and with it our own history.”
The painting is from a period of Matisse’s work from 1921 to 1928, mainly modelled by Henriette Darricarrère, and including the most expensive of his works ever sold, Odalisque couchée aux magnolias, which reached almost $81 million at an auction in 2018.
The Dutch Jewish population was 154,887 in 1941 as the Sterns tried to leave, and just 14,346 in the 1947 census.
Three quarters of Dutch Jews were murdered during the Second World War with the assistance of local Nazi sympathisers and many collaborators in the civil service and police. Most went unpunished after the war.
“This work represents a very sad history and is connected to the unspeakable suffering inflicted on this family,” said Rein Wolfs, the museum’s director.