Eight works stayed in Basel after a sale driven by exile

Julius Freund, a Jewish textile manufacturer in Berlin, assembled a collection of more than 700 paintings and works on paper. In 1933 he deposited 385 works at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur and later added another 106. The family formally transferred ownership of the collection to his daughter Gisela, later known as the photographer Gisèle Freund. That decision was intended to protect the collection from direct seizure.

Julius and Clara Freund fled to England in 1939. After Julius died there in 1941, the family agreed to sell the Swiss holdings so that Clara would have an income. Theodor Fischer auctioned them in Lucerne on 21 March 1942. Basel bought five drawings and one lithograph at that sale. Two further works from the collection arrived later as gifts, including the work by Käthe Kollwitz shown here.

In December 2025, the museum and the heirs announced a financial settlement covering all eight works. Basel kept the works and the parties kept the amount private. The case puts the purpose of the Lucerne sale in view: Swiss storage protected the objects from direct seizure, but it could not remove the financial pressures that persecution and exile placed on their owners.