A partial view of “The Colorful Life” by Wassily Kandinsky. Photo: Ermell via Wikimedia Commons

A 1907 painting by the legendary Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky currently owned by the Bavarian state bank should be returned to the heirs of a Jewish couple from Amsterdam who originally owned the artwork, an independent German commission announced on Tuesday.

The commission, which focuses on “the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution,” said it ruled on May 16 that the painting titled The Colorful Life by the Russian artist was rightfully owned by the families of Hedwig Lewenstein Weyermann and her former daughter-in-law Irma Lewenstein Klein, both of whom lived in Amsterdam. The artwork shows a large group of people, dressed in colorful ensembles, out on a lawn while some of them eat, play music or appear to be dancing.

The painting was auctioned in the Nazi-occupied city of Amsterdam on Oct. 9, 1940, but beforehand the Lewenstein family had loaned it to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, from where it was taken on Sept. 5, 1940, the commission said. It added that the painting was acquired in auction by Salomon B. Slijper, whose widow sold it to Bayerische Landesbank in 1972. It has since on loan from the bank to the Staedtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus and Kunstbau museum in Munich.

Bayerische Landesbank argued that the painting may have been sold by Klein as part of her divorce settlement. However the German panel concluded that “the painting was seized as a result of persecution,” and that the Jewish couple in Amsterdam “were persecuted as Jews” when the German occupation of the Netherlands began in 1940.

However, the German advisory commission concluded in May, that “there are numerous indications that this was a case of a seizure as a result of Nazi persecution,” following the German occupation of the Netherlands began in 1940, and that “arguments put forward by the Bayerische Landesbank are not capable of disproving this.”

The commission’s recommendations are non-binding but are likely followed by the parties involved if they have both agreed to have the panel resolve a dispute, the Associated Press reported.

Bayerische Landesbank said in a statement cited by the New York Times that it may consider the panel’s decision “in the context of its decision on how to proceed further.”