JUSTICE FINALLY SERVED

Kandinsky Masterpiece Stolen by Nazis Sets Record at London Auction

“Murnau with Church II” fetched nearly $45 million.

A masterpiece of abstract art that was stolen by the Nazis and whose owner was murdered at Auschwitz has sold for a record £37.2 million ($44.6 million) at Sotheby’s in London. The 1910 work, “Murnau with Church II” by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, once belonged to Johanna Margarethe Stern-Lippmann, who with her husband Siegfried Stern built up a major art collection before World War II. It was discovered at a Dutch museum and returned to Stern’s descendants after a long legal battle. The family said they would use part of the proceeds to search for other paintings stolen from their ancestors. Earlier this week, a monumental picture by Edvard Munch that was hidden from the Nazis in a Norwegian barn sold for £17 million at the same London auction house.