Hero and the words that link her to Bendemann’s estate

An archival image shows Hero bent forward beside the grieving Amor in this narrow oil on canvas. The Max Stern Art Restitution Project identifies it as a work by Eduard Bendemann, who died in 1889. Its catalogue records an inscription linking the painting to the artist’s estate. The record gives the dimensions as 66 by 47 centimetres.

The painting later belonged to the stock of Max Stern’s Düsseldorf gallery. Its entry as lot 11 in the 1937 Lempertz catalogue places it in a liquidation imposed on Stern by Nazi persecution. The surviving documentation provides no verified buyer for this painting. That gap leaves its route after the catalogue unresolved.

The estate mark is the most useful clue for separating the missing canvas from a similarly titled work. If the painting surfaces, a match would require comparing the composition and size as well as documenting any mark that survives. The restitution project continues to list it as missing.