Nazi-looted fountain fetches 4 million euros at Berlin auction

A fountain by artist Georg Kolbe, confirmed as Nazi-looted art, has been sold at auction for four million euros, significantly exceeding its estimated value. The artwork, created in 1922, was previously housed in the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin. The museum recently returned the fountain to the heirs of Heinrich Stahl, a prominent Jewish community leader and director of Victoria-Versicherung, who was forced to sell his home and the fountain under duress during the Nazi era.

Stahl and his wife were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942; he did not survive, but his wife emigrated to the US after the war. The fountain had been considered lost for decades. Stahl's grandson had initially renounced the fountain in 2001, but this was not on behalf of the entire family.

Following restitution, the heirs opted to have the artwork auctioned in Berlin. The auction at Grisebach featured six bidders, with the final price reaching four million euros. The spokesperson for the auction house stated that the museum does not know the future plans for the fountain, which is now part of a private collection in the United States.

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What now happens with the fountain, we do not know.