Picasso painting looted by Nazis will return to heirs of Jewish banker

The National Gallery of Art in Washington will return a drawing by Pablo Picasso to the heirs of a German-Jewish banker who sold the work at a loss because he feared the Nazis would confiscate his estate. Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a descendant of composer Felix Mendelssohn, sold the pastel work, titled “Head of a Woman,” in 1934, along with at least 15 other significant artworks. He died the following year. In 1938, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's family bank, Bank Mendelssohn & Co., founded in 1795, was seized by the Nazis and transferred to non-Jewish ownership. “Head of a Woman” was sold to art dealer Justin Thannhauser in 1934. The National Gallery of Art acquired the work through a donation in 2001, according to The New York Times. The museum said it decided to settle with Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's heirs “to avoid the heavy toll of litigation,” not because it agreed that the heirs' claims were valid, according to the report. Heirs of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, including his great-nephew, the German scholar Julius Schoeps, also reached settlements in 2009 with the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York over two other Picassos that Mendelssohn-Bartholdy sold to Thannhauser. Those artworks remain in the museum's collections. var theUrl = document.URL;var theUrlArray = theUrl.split("//");var theUrlpre = theUrlArray[1];var theUrlpostArray = theUrlpre.split("/");var theUrlpost = theUrlpostArray[0];(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)})(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');ga('create', 'UA-2449829-1', theUrlpost, {'name':'uniqueTrackerName'});ga('uniqueTrackerName.send', 'pageview');

Picasso painting looted by Nazis will return to heirs of Jewish banker

Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a descendant of composer Felix Mendelssohn, sold the pastel work titled “Head of a Woman” in 1934, along with at least 15 other significant artworks. He died in 1935.

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Picasso painting looted by Nazis will return to heirs of Jewish banker

Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a descendant of composer Felix Mendelssohn, sold the pastel work titled “Head of a Woman” in 1934, along with at least 15 other significant artworks. He died in 1935.

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