Munch Painting Comes To Auction Following Settlement Between Heirs

A large-scale painting by Edvard Munch will be sold at a Sotheby’s auction, following a legal settlement between heirs of its original owner, a Jewish art historian who fled persecution during World War II and was forced to sell his collection, and a Norwegian collector who purchased it soon after.

The painting, titled Dance on the Beach (1906), will be offered as part of an evening sale at Sotheby’s London on March 1, where is expected to fetch a price between $15 million and $25 million.

Proceeds from the sale of the work will be divided between relatives of Curt Glaser, a German Jewish art critic and collector who was forced to sell works he owned in Berlin in 1933, before fleeing Nazi persecution. Several months after Glaser parted with the Munch painting, Norwegian shipping magnate Thomas Olsen purchased the work along with others by the artists at a public sale in Oslo. Olsen was a known patron of Munch, having owned a collection of more than 30 of his works; he was also an acquaintance of Glaser’s.