A German auction house halted its sale of an untitled 1928 painting by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky on Friday after Polish authorities vowed legal action, stating that the painting had been stolen from a Warsaw museum almost four decades ago.
the painting had ownership markings that indicate it had come from the National Museum in Warsaw. Poland has previously reported the painting as stolen to Interpol.
A Grisebach spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement that the sale has been suspended for now, and that it has contacted the potential buyers and sellers. The auction house said it “will now endeavor to bring about a supplementary judicial legal review by a court in order to obtain a binding clarification.”
Grisebach, which has a team of 40 experts who check for authenticity, said “it emerged that the painting had been in the possession of the consignors for several decades and had already been sold publicly at auction by Sotheby’s in London in the first half of the 1980s.”It added that “it first became aware of a possible theft from a Polish museum shortly before the auction through a communication from the Polish Ministry of Culture.
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