A Crate in the Basement: On the Works of Kazimir Malevich Loaned to the Hanover Museum 1

In April 2008, after many years of legal battles, the heirs of the Russian artist Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) came to an agreement with the City of Amsterdam regarding the return of five works from the collection of the Stedelijk Museum (Kennedy 2008). A few months later, in November of that year, one of the pieces, a Suprematist Composition of 1916, was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York for 60 million US dollars. This was the highest price ever reached for a work of Malevich and indeed for any picture by a Russian painter (Melikian 2008). Eight years before, the money spent on another Malevich painting, Suprematist Composition (1923–1925), auctioned in New York at Phillips had been less than a third, amounting to just 17.8 million US dollars (Horsley 2008).