A 1906 self-portrait by German modernist Paula Modersohn-Becker, titled *Selbstbildnis nach halblinks (Self-Portrait Looking Slightly Left)*, sold for €1.3 million ($1.5 million) at Berlin's Grisebach auction house on Thursday—more than quintupling its low estimate and more than doubling the artist's previous auction record. The work was acquired by an unnamed European private collector. The painting had previously been seized by the Nazis as "degenerate" art from the St. Annen Museum in Lübeck and was later acquired by the collector Bauer, who aimed to rehabilitate persecuted artists.
The record price reflects surging market interest in female modernist artists, particularly those historically marginalized or written out of art history. Modersohn-Becker, long undervalued, has recently received major institutional attention, including a 2022 retrospective at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt. The sale also underscores the enduring market resonance of works with complex provenance stories, especially those involving Nazi-era restitution and the rehabilitation of "degenerate" art.