How does Summer Evening on Skagen's Southern Beach elucidate its Provenance?
The painting was owned by the opera singer Lilli Lehmann, and in 1978 was sold to the German newspaper magnate Axel Springer for DKK 520,000. In 1986 Springer's widow, not herself Jewish, donated the painting to the Danish people in remembrance of the 1943 rescue of the Danish Jews from the Nazis. At that time Danish civilians together with the Danish resistance movement risked their own lives to evacuate 7,220 of Denmark's 7,800 Jews by sea to nearby neutral Sweden. The painting is held by Skagens Museum.
Lilli Lehmann Danish resistance movement Axel Springer DKK rescue of the Danish Jews Skagen Sweden widow Skagens Museum