Swiss museum compensates Jewish heirs for Camille Pissarro painting
Kunstmuseum Basel compensates heirs of a Jewish art collector
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Swiss museum compensates Jewish heirs for Camille Pissarro painting
The Kunstmuseum Basel is compensating the heirs of a Jewish collector for a painting by Camille Pissarro that was sold under duress in 1933. The museum received the painting as a donation around three years ago.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA
Deutsch
de
Kunstmuseum Basel entschädigt Erben eines jüdischen Kunstsammlers
Original
The heirs are satisfied with the solution that has been found. The money for the compensation comes from the acquisition fund and does not affect the museum’s budget. The amount of the compensation was not communicated.
The painting La Maison Rondest, l’Hermitage, Pontoise from 1875 was donated to the Kunstmuseum Basel on the occasion of the exhibition of works by Camille Pissarro, according to the statement. According to the communiqué, it came from the Riehen collection of Klaus von Berlebsch, who donated the painting, which was initially intended as a loan, to the museum.
Standard provenance research
The Kunstmuseum then researched the provenance of the work, as has been standard practice since the adoption of the provenance research strategy in 2022. The painting is listed on the website www.lostart.de – albeit under a different title and without an image. This is why the previous owner, who has since passed away, was unaware of the work’s original provenance.
More
More
Looted art: the woman tackling Switzerland’s historical burden
This content was published on
As Switzerland steps up efforts to address looted art in public collections, Nikola Doll is set to play a central coordinating role.
The painting was owned by the Jewish textile entrepreneur Richard Semmel until the Nazis seized power. He sold the painting while fleeing from Germany. Following recognition of the loss due to Nazi persecution, the lawyer Olaf S. Ossmann, who has represented the heirs of Richard Semmel for many years, was contacted and the work was reported as being in the Kunstmuseum’s collection.
Adapted from German by DeepL/ac
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
Popular Stories
More
Life & Aging
Zurich: how the world capital of housing shortages is tackling the problem
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
In Switzerland more people are being referred to electrical therapies or psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Are there similar approaches where you live?
Pope was a person full of respect: Swiss president
This content was published on
Swiss president Karin Keller-Sutter, who is attending the funeral of Pope Francis, says the pontiff was always full of respect.
Ex-sect member sentenced in Zurich for sexual abuse
This content was published on
Zurich District Court has sentenced a former member of the globally active sect "Children of God" to a partial prison sentence.
SNB chairman does not rule out slowdown in Swiss growth
This content was published on
Martin Schlegel, chairman of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), does not rule out a weakening of the Swiss economy in light of the tariff dispute.
Swiss NGOs abroad to receive 10% less federal funding
This content was published on
In 2025 and 2026, Swiss NGOs will have 10% less federal funding available for international cooperation than in the previous two-year period.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.