Wassily Kandinsky’s landmark 1907 painting Das bunte Leben (The Colorful Life) is heading to Christie’s London for its October 14 evening sale during Frieze week, carrying an estimate in excess of $30 million. Restituted to the heirs of its original Jewish owners in 2023 following a six-year legal battle, the canvas spent more than five decades on display at Munich’s Lenbachhaus museum.
The Bottom Line
- The Auction Block: Christie’s London will offer the 1907 masterpiece on October 14, with expectations soaring past $30 million.
- The Provenance: The canvas was restituted to the heirs of Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann in 2023 after a protracted battle over Nazi-era forced dispossession.
- The Museum History: The painting spent over 50 years hanging in Munich’s Lenbachhaus museum on loan from the Bavarian State Bank.
Decoding the Market Value of a Restituted Masterpiece
The anticipated $30 million price tag for The Colorful Life would place it among the most valuable works by the artist ever sold at auction. This follows hot on the heels of Sotheby’s London setting the artist’s auction record in 2023, when Murnau mit Kirche II (1910) fetched £37.2 million—roughly $44.9 million at the time.
Both paintings share a haunting narrative arc: stolen or forcibly sold under Nazi persecution, held for decades in public institutions, and eventually returned to the families of the original collectors.
From Interwar Amsterdam to the Bavarian State Bank
Emanuel Albert Lewenstein, an industrialist running a sewing machine factory in interwar Amsterdam, and his wife Hedwig Lewenstein-Weyermann purchased the tempera and gouache work in 1927. As the political climate in Europe deteriorated, the family placed the canvas with the Stedelijk Museum for safekeeping.
Neither Emanuel nor Hedwig lived to see the German occupation of the Netherlands. Following the invasion, the family’s possessions were dispersed in 1940, and the work was sold at auction in October 1940 through a transaction whose full pressures remain subject to research. Decades later, in 1972, the Bavarian State Bank acquired the painting, subsequently placing it on long-term loan to the Lenbachhaus in Munich, where it remained viewable to the public for more than fifty years.
The legal reckoning arrived only after the descendants, including Robert and Wilhelmine Lewenstein, enlisted the Mondex Corporation—a firm specializing in the recovery of art and other assets looted during World War II founded by James Palmer. Though initial resistance from institutions was fierce—Palmer told Der Spiegel that representatives essentially told them to “fuck off” early on—an independent German advisory commission concluded in 2023 that the 1940 sale bore the hallmarks of forced dispossession.
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1907 | Painted during Kandinsky’s Parisian sojourn with Gabriele Münter. |
| 1927 | Purchased by Dutch collectors Emanuel and Hedwig Lewenstein. |
| 1940 | Sold at auction following Nazi confiscation and persecution. |
| 1972 | Acquired by the Bavarian State Bank and loaned to the Lenbachhaus. |
| 2023 | Restituted to the Lewenstein heirs following an advisory commission recommendation. |
The Artistic Genesis of Kandinsky’s Largest Early Canvas
Measuring just over four feet high and five feet wide, Das bunte Leben represented Kandinsky’s largest canvas up to that point. Created during an extended stay in Paris alongside Gabriele Münter, the work acts as an ambitious bridge between his early figurative style and the radical abstraction that would soon redefine modern art.
Marc Porter, chairman for the Americas at Christie’s, noted in press materials that the painting captures a critical convergence of influences. The composition overflows with a pastoral landscape populated by pilgrims, peasants, saints, nobles, and mothers and children, drawing heavily on Russian folklore, legend, and religious traditions.
