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Christie’s Ordered To Restitute Van Der Werff Painting To Heirs

A French court has ordered Christie’s to return a Van Der Werff painting to the heirs of author Marcel Proust.

The painting in question, The Penitent Magdalene, was created in 1707 by Dutch artist Adriaen Van der Werff. The painting was last in the collection of Lionel Hauser, a French banker who was also the cousin of author Marcel Proust. Hauser was known to financially support Proust till 1920. The painting, along with some 40 others, was seized from Hauser’s residence by Nazis in 1942. It is speculated that it changed hands to unknown private collectors in 1945. Even until his death in 1958, Hauser was unsuccessfully trying to reclaim his lost collection.

The painting first came under Christie’s in 2005, when the auction house sold the work for £60,000. In 2018, the painting again came up for sale; this time, however, Christie’s decided to notify the heirs of Hauser. Over the next years, the auction house tried to mediate over the Van Der Werff painting between the current owner and the heirs, but to no avail. When all negotiations fell off, the heirs filed a restitution claim in 2022.

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Now, a French court has ordered to return the painting to the heirs, disclose the name of the anonymous current owners, as well as pay $10,900 to the court for procedural fees. The court also nullified all transactions regarding the Van Der Werff painting since 1945. For this, the court used a 1945 providence that was formed to negate the sale of Nazi-looted arts.