The Smuggled Foxes That Set Franz Marc's Auction Record

Franz Marc's The Foxes (Die Füchse) (1913) sold for $56.67m at Christie's London on March 1, 2022.

The oil on canvas work had been traded 7 times in the past and was returned to the heirs of Kurt and Else Grawi by the city of Dusseldorf in 2021.

Marc, a co-founder of the groundbreaking group Der Blaue Reiter with Wassily Kandinsky and Gabriele Münter, died in WWI at the Battle of Verdun. His Modernist masterwork passed to his widow, Maria, who sold it in 1916.

The Foxes was acquired in 1928 by the German-Jewish banker Kurt Grawi, who was forced to flee Berlin with the rise of the Nazis. Grawi managed to escape to the US, smuggling The Foxes into the country. He was forced to sell it there to raise funds to rescue his family from Germany. It was bought in 1939 by the Hollywood film director William Dieterle and his actress wife, Charlotte, who were also German exiles.

In 1962, it was donated to the Stadtische Kunstsammlung, Dusseldorf, which restituted the painting after its forced sale was established.

The sale beat Marc's previous auction record by $32.45m, a 125% rise. His previous record was set by Weidende Pferde III (Grazing horses III) (1910), which sold for $24.22m at Sotheby's on February 5, 2008. The work had been traded at least four times in the past.

Marc's Grazing Horses was acquired by the Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf in 1924 but it lost the painting in the Nazi purge of Modern art in Germany's museums. It was deaccessioned as "degenerate art" in January 1937.

A Brief History of Franz Marc at Auction