Sotheby’s will sell Kasimir Malevichs Suprematist Composition (1916) at its November 3 Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale. The work, which was painted the same year he wrote his Suprematist manifesto, is estimated to earn “in excess of $60 million,” according to the auction house.
Part of the collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam for 50 years, the painting was restituted to the artist’s heirs in April, following a four-year court battle, Bloomberg reports. According to the eventual agreement, five paintings were given to the heirs, and the museum retained nine others. The heirs are the consignors of the work to be sold at Sotheby’s.
Suprematist Composition was one of several Malevichs that were separated from the artist when Stalin forbade citizens from traveling abroad. The artist was forced to sell the work, which was on display at the time in Berlin in his first exhibition for a Western audience; some works sold to the Stedelijk and others to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.
German art historian Clemens Toussaint tracked down Malevich’s heirs and encouraged them to seek restitution of the works. In June 1999, MoMA paid them an undisclosed cash settlement and handed over a painting from 1925, also titled Suprematist Composition, while holding onto 15 other paintings.
The heirs sold the 1925 Suprematist Composition at a May 2000 Phillips sale for $17 million.
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