Renoir painting unjustly taken before Holocaust

In 1956, steel magnate Newton Korhumel and his wife, Irene, bought a florid country landscape by French impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir at a New York gallery. The painting hung proudly in their Lake Forest home.


Now, there's a question as to whether the couple ever truly owned the painting.


Irene Korhumel died in December, nine years after her husband. The executor of their estate turned to Christie's auction house in Chicago to sell the painting, created by an artist whose work routinely fetches millions of dollars.


But any potential sale is on hold, awaiting a possible claim by the heirs of a German textile mogul who, like many other Jews in mid-20th century Europe, lost his art collection to the Nazi onslaught, said Olaf Ossmann, a Swiss lawyer who represents the mogul's heirs.

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Renoir painting owned by Lake Forest family may have been unjustly taken before Holocaust - chicagotribune.com