Jewish heirs seek to halt $180 million Van Gogh auction over alleged Nazi-era forced sale

The descendants of the Jewish former owners of a Vincent van Gogh painting have asked Sotheby's to withdraw the work from an auction scheduled for Wednesday night, arguing that their family sold it under duress from Nazi persecution in 1936, The New York Times reported Friday.

The painting, "Châtaigniers en Fleurs," or "Blossoming Chestnut Trees" in English, was painted in 1890 and was expected to fetch around $180 million. That estimate was the highest for any work offered during the season's major art auctions and, if achieved, would have surpassed the auction record for a Van Gogh. Sotheby's had also guaranteed the canvas, assuring the seller of a minimum price.

The work entered the Fischer family collection in 1909, when Samuel Fischer, a prominent German publisher, bought it from a Paris gallery. Fischer founded S. Fischer Verlag, whose authors included Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse and Alfred Döblin. After his death in 1934, his son-in-law, Gottfried Bermann Fischer, took over the publishing house. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Germany, many writers published by the company were banned, and Bermann Fischer left Berlin for Vienna in an attempt to continue publishing their work.

The family deposited the Van Gogh with art dealer Walter Feilchenfeldt, who ultimately sold it to a Paris collector in 1936. The painting passed through several owners before being acquired in 1975 by the Argentine collectors whose collection is now being auctioned. Before the sale, the work had been exhibited outside Germany, shown in Rotterdam in 1933 and in Bern the following year.

The heirs argue that the family's circumstances under Nazi persecution were directly connected to the 1936 sale. According to research by their attorney, Gunnar Schnabel, the Nazis restricted what Jews were permitted to take with them when leaving Germany, and the Fischer family was forced to pay the "Reich flight tax." In a November 12 email seen by the Times, Schnabel urged Sotheby's to prove the painting was sold at market value and that it would have been sold even without the pressure created under Nazi rule. "Otherwise," he wrote, "no auction may take place."

Schnabel said his client "is prepared to work toward a fair and just solution in the spirit of the 1998 Washington Principles," a non-binding set of 11 guidelines on how to approach artwork stolen from Jews by the Nazis.

Sotheby's acknowledged the claim and said it had researched the painting's ownership history without concluding that the 1936 transaction was a forced sale. "While our research to date has not established that the painting was sold under duress, we recognize the importance of engaging thoughtfully and constructively with the family and are committed to working toward a mutually satisfactory resolution," the auction house said. It had not said whether the painting would remain in the Wednesday night auction as scheduled.

The question of whether a sale outside Nazi-controlled territory can still constitute a persecution-related loss has arisen in other restitution cases. In 2021, Düsseldorf agreed to return a Franz Marc painting to the heirs of a Jewish owner who sold it in New York after fleeing Nazi Germany, with a German restitution commission finding that the location of the sale did not negate the role persecution played in forcing him to part with the work. After World War II, Bermann Fischer's ownership of the publishing house was restored, but he did not seek restitution for paintings sold in the Netherlands because there was no legal basis at the time for compensation for art sales in countries not under Nazi rule. Restitution practice has evolved in recent years, with greater attention paid to whether persecution compelled Jewish owners to sell even outside Nazi-controlled territory.

The Fischer family had raised similar concerns over another painting entrusted to Feilchenfeldt and sold in 1936. When Christie's prepared to auction a Cézanne portrait in 2007, Bermann Fischer's daughter Gisela said she would not oppose that sale but explicitly reserved the family's right to pursue claims over other works her father had sold under duress. "Blossoming Chestnut Trees" had remained out of public view for more than six decades. It depicts a large flowering chestnut tree, with three women carrying parasols walking beneath it as a lone man approaches from the opposite direction.