Lawrence Steigrad, Recent Acquisitions 2016

Recent Acquisitions

Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts

Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts

Recent Acquisitions

23 East 69th Street, New York, New York 10021 Tel: (212) 517-3643 Fax: (212) 517-3914 www.steigrad.com e-mail: gallery@steigrad.com Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Saturday by appointment

FRONT COVER

: ARTHUR WASSE, NO. 14 (detail) : GIACOMO GUARDI, NO. 5 (detail)

INSIDE FRONT COVER FRONTISPIECE

: BARTHOLOMEUS JOHANNES VAN HOVE, NO. 7 (detail)

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ince our gallery opened in 1989, we have been exhibiting paintings, drawings, and sculpture, primarily from The Netherlands of the seventeenth through twentieth centuries, at our Manhattan gallery, and at fine-art fairs around the world.

As in the past twenty-seven years, it has been a wonderful adventure discovering and researching the following works. Their past histories comprise a myriad of stories of artists and owners, while their remarkable imagery continues to resonate. Please visit our website at www.steigrad.com where all of our artworks are illustrated with complete fact sheets.

All the works are on offer subject to prior sale.

We would like to thank the following people for their invaluable advice and expertise in the preparation of this catalog: Drew Adam, Charles Beddington, Edgar Peters Bowron, Carole Denninger, Robert Goeken, Anne-Dore Ketelsen-Volkhardt, Elizabeth Lane, Fred G. Meijer, Norbert Middelkoop, Hellmuth Mรถhring, Peter G. Rose and Mike Wasse.

We are extremely grateful to Helen D. Edersheim for her diligent proof-reading and expert editorial assistance.

We are indebted to our director McKell Forbes for the extremely efficient running of our New York gallery.

Peggy Stone & Lawrence Steigrad

1.

GERMAN SCHOOL (?)

Circa 1610 – 1620s Waffles and Butter on Pewter Plates with an Apple, Roll, Jug, Standing Salt, and a Beer Glass with Prunts on a Cloth-Covered Table oil on panel 15¼ x 20 inches (38.6 x 51.2 cm.)

To the seventeenth century viewer, this still life would immediately have brought to mind thoughts of joyous occasions. Waffles in particular were reserved for special celebrations, most notably during the yearly Carnival that preceded Lent.1 Further they were standard fare during the winter holiday of the Epiphany, as well as Easter and Pinkster.2 The association of waffles with Carnival was memorialized in 1559 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Battle Between Carnival and Lent (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) in which a female waffle-maker is depicted in a detail of the panel extending a long two-armed metal press over an open fire (see Fig. 1a). Preparing to sell her wares, she, along with her clients, is counted among revelers at the fair.3 Further emphasizing their connection to the feast, Bruegel displays a stack of waffles along with four bread rolls on a table-top carried by a “nun” who follows behind the rotund figure of Carnival (see Fig. 1a).4 In the lower left corner of the composition, a standing waffle-seller in a white mask and wearing a necklace of eggs clutches his wares, while another waffle-maker, recognizable by the three waffles strapped to his hat, is engaged in a game of dice with a Carnival “devil”. The stake is one waffle (see Fig. 1a).5 While this panel encapsulates the sensual pleasures on offer at Carnival, the presence of an apple adds a cautionary note. Contemporary moralists advocated a temperate lifestyle as the road to salvation, whereas drinking and feasting were regarded as vices best avoided. Further, the possession of costly objects and delicacies can be viewed as emblematic of the transient nature of earthly riches. The apple is the ultimate symbol for original sin. The portrayed white roll resembles those depicted in Bruegel’s work and is again reflective of a treat. White rolls were costly, whole wheat or rye bread the standard fare.6 Beer which would have been contained in the jug and drunk from the beer glass was consumed by both children and adults. Usually made from fermented hops and malted barley, it was boiled in its preparation and thus safer to drink than water, which was often contaminated.7 Butter and salt were also luxury items. This was particularly true of salt, here indicated by its central positioning behind the waffles and its imposing cylindrical container.8 The pronounced creases of the fine linen tablecloth show it to be from a well-run household as it is freshly laundered.

In all likelihood and fittingly such a work as this would have been painted to be sold at Carnival or other fairs.

At these events an area was set aside by the local guild which permitted their members and non-members as well Continued Peter G. Rose, “Food for Special Occasions in the Netherlands and New Netherland” in Matters of Taste, Food and Drink in Seventeenth Century Dutch Art and Life, Albany Institute of History and Art, Syracuse University Press, 2002, p. 25.

2 Written communication from Peter G. Rose, dated April 6, 2015.

3 Kenneth Bendiner, Food in Painting from the Renaissance to the Present, Reaktion Books Ltd., London, 2004, p. 188.

4 Edward Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005, p. 89.

5 Andrew Graham-Dixon, In the Picture: The Year in Art, Allen Lane, London, 2003, p. 36.

6 Henry D. Gregory, “Narrative and Meaning in Pieter Claesz’s Still Life” in Pieter Claesz, Master of Haarlem Still Life, exhibition catalog, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, November 27, 2004 - April 4, 2005, p. 99.

7 Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1984, p. 172; and Peter G. Rose, “Food and Drink in the Netherlands during the Seventeenth Century” in Matters of Taste, op. cit., p. 20.

8 E. de Jongh, “Clara Peeters” in Still-Life in the age of Rembrandt, exhibition catalog, Auckland City Art Gallery, 1982, p. 68; and Victoria Avery, Melissa Calaresu, Mary Laven, eds., Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, Philip Wilson Publishers, The University of Cambridge, p. 196.

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as foreigners to sell their works. It is believed that at this point still lifes were mainly painted for the open market, with only a small number executed on a commission basis. Many artists also acted as dealers.9 This work, thought to have been painted in Germany, is dated by Fred G. Meijer to the 1610 - 1620s, but not later than 1630.10 Executed when the painting of still lifes was relatively new, its point of origin is a bit difficult to pin down because of the way the genre evolved. Around the end of the sixteenth century, strong interest developed in floral and still life pieces in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Frankfurt, Middleburg, and Prague. Due to trade and the flow of cultural exchange between these capitals, a style came about which overall was fairly similar, although local traditions played a role in individual development.11 Such telltale elements in this composition as the high vantage point and upward tipping of the back of the table are characteristic of the early period of its execution. Also typical is the equal distribution of food and objects at regular intervals throughout the panel’s surface, as is the employment of a simple color palette.12 The protrusion of the waffle plate over the edge of the table is an early device used to add three-dimensionality to the scene, breaking down the picture plane and inviting the viewer to partake of the refreshments on hand.13 Light from an unseen source on the left is reflected on the belly, lid, and handle of the beer jug, as well as on the salt cellar, and pewter plates, with all of the objects’ shadows accordingly cast to the right. The opacity of the dark background enhances the illumination of the table’s contents. Meant to delight the senses and serve as a reminder of pleasurable events, time has done nothing to diminish the painter’s intent.

We would like to thank Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, and the food historian Peter G. Rose for their valuable assistance in the writing of this entry.

Titia van Leeuwen, “Still-Life painting in the Netherlands: Historical Facts and Facets” in Still Life in the age of Rembrandt, op. cit, p. 50; and Pamela Hibbs Decoteau, Clara Peeters, Luca Verlag, Lingen, 1992, p. 10.

10 Written communications from Fred G. Meijer, dated January 23, 2015, and January 28, 2015.

11 N. R. A. Vroom, A Modest Message as intimated by the painters of the “Monochrome Banketje”, Interbook International B.V., Schiedam, 1980, pp. 13-14.

12 Titia van Leeuwen, op. cit., p. 47; and Pamela Hibbs Decoteau, op. cit., pp. 12, 15.

13 Pamela Hibbs Decoteau, op. cit., p. 32; and Peter C. Sutton, “Willem Kalf ” in Dutch and Flemish Paintings, The Collection of Willem Baron van Dedem, Frances Lincoln Limited, London, 2002, p. 147.

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Fig. 1a (detail) Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-69), Battle between Carnival, or Mardi Gras, and Lent, 1559, oil on panel, 46½ x 644⠄5 inches (118 x 164.5 cm.), Collection of Kunsthistorisches Museum, Courtesy of Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria, Mondadori Portfolio, Electa, Remo Bardazzi, Bridgeman Images

2.

JACOB WILLEMSZ. DELFF THE YOUNGER (Delft 1619 – Delft 1661) Portrait of a Young Woman signed J. Delff with the initials conjoined and dated Aº 1654, in the center right oil on panel 29 x 245⁄16 inches (73.6 x 61.7 cm.) provenance

Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, London, July 9, 1947, lot 64, where purchased by Nicholson Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, Scotland, August 28, 1970, lot 175, where purchased by Private Collection, Massachusetts, until 2015 Jacob Willemsz. Delff (also called Jacobus Delffius or Jacob Willemsz. Delfius) began his training in the workshop of his maternal grandfather, the renowned portraitist Michiel van Mierevelt. His paternal grandfather was the portrait painter Jacob Willemsz. Delff the Elder. His father was Willem Jacobsz. Delff, a portrait engraver who worked for twenty years in Mierevelt’s studio. Following the deaths of Mierevelt’s sons Pieter and Jan, who were also employed in the workshop, his grandson Jacob was designated as his successor. Several works exist that are signed by both Mierevelt and Delff the Younger, as well as examples signed solely by Delff prior to his grandfather’s death in 1641. This would have constituted a break from tradition as well as a sign of great confidence in the young painter’s abilities. After Mierevelt’s death, Delff took charge, completing unfinished commissions and receiving new orders. Initially the conservative style of his grandfather was maintained, one which emphasized the reserved dignity of his patrician clientele.1 Not only did Delff inherit Mierevelt’s studio but he also lived in Mierevelt’s large house (now 71, Oude Delft).

On October 15, 1641, he was named Master of the Delft Guild. In 1642 he married Anna van Hoogenhouck with whom he had five children. In 1654 he joined the city council and from 1657-1659 served as the harbormaster of Delft.2 He was a sergeant in the civic guard to which only those of “the most reputable character and moneyed background were admitted”.3 Unsurprisingly the majority of Delff’s sitters were from the Delft elite. The Officers of the White Banner (Gemeente Musea Delft), executed in 1648, depicts the senior officers of the Delft civic militia, and is considered one of his most famous works. Arnold Houbraken viewed it as a testimony to his skill, declaring the painting “could well hang beside those of his grandfather”. It further marks a stylistic change towards a more elegant depiction of his subjects in keeping with the prevailing trend of the times.

Until his death in 1661, Delff, along with Anthonie Palamedesz., was regarded as a leading portraitist in Delft.

Portraits by Delff can be found in the museums of Amsterdam, Dayton, Delft, Gouda, The Hague, Loosdrecht, Philadelphia, Prague, and Rotterdam.4 Continued

Biographical information taken from Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, “Jacob Willemsz. Delff ” in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, volume 25, K.G. Saur Verlag, Berlin, 1992, p. 441; Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, “Willem Jacobsz. Delff [Delft]” in The Grove Dictionary of Art, From Rembrandt to Vermeer, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2000, pp. 87-88; Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, “Michiel (Jansz.) van Mierevelt [Miereveld]” in The Grove Dictionary of Art, op. cit., pp. 213-214; and Dr. Ronni Baer, “Dou and the Delft Connection” in Face Book, Studies on Dutch and Flemish portraiture of the 16th-18th Centuries, Primavera Pers, Leiden, 2012, p. 281.

2 L. Burchard, “Jacob II Willemsz. Delff ” in Thieme-Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Kunstler, volume IX, Veb E.A. Seeman Verlag, Leipzig, 1913, p. 15; J. W. Salomonson, “The Officers of the White Banner: a civic guard portrait by Jacob Willemsz Delff II” in Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, volume 18, no. 1/2, Stichting Nederlandse Kunsthistorische Publicaties, 1988, pp.

37, 45; and Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Kunstler, op. cit. p. 441.

3 J.W. Salomonson, op. cit., p. 25.

4 Ibid, p. 15; and Rudolf E.O. Ekkart, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Kunstler, op. cit., p. 441.

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The 1654 date of Portrait of a Young Woman coincides with a catastrophic event in Delft. On October 12th of that year, the Secreet van Hollandt powder magazine, which held about 90,000 pounds of gunpowder, exploded.

Most of the surrounding buildings were leveled, and hundreds are believed to have perished. The painter Carel Fabritius was killed.5 The Oude Doelen which housed Delff’s Officers of the White Banner, as well as Jacob Willemsz. Delff the Elder’s The Arquebusiers of the Fourth Squad, Mierevelt’s Civic Guard Banquet and his great uncle Rochus Jacobsz. Delff’s The Officers of the Orange Banner, was also destroyed. All of the works suffered damage and the task of restoration was undertaken by Delff.6 In the aftermath of such a calamitous event it is hard to conceive of the painter executing this charming Portrait of a Young Woman. In all likelihood it was finished prior to the explosion.

Serenely seated against a dark background, the portrayed young lady is a study of elegance formulated from the contrasting hues of black and white. An enigmatic smile plays across her lips. Her dress and hair are reflective of the latest fashion. After 1650, long locks on either side of the face ending in bows was de rigueur. The remaining hair was gathered in the back and held in place, in this case by a network of silver braid ending in multiple loops topped off with a round clasp of onyx stones. She wears a black patterned satin gown with ribbing. A black onyx brooch banded by gold is pinned to a center stay. At this point, sleeves had been shortened to end just below the elbow. The lace cuff attached to the sleeve, patterned in a foliage design, matches that of the double collar. The two-tiered conical collar, which took hold in the 1650s7, is tied at the neck and fastened across the shoulders by floral bows fashioned from stiffened lace. Lace at this time was often more costly than woven fabrics or jewelry.8 She wears a pearl and onyx necklace. The pearl is indicative of the sitter’s wealth but also emblematic of purity, perfection, and femininity.9 Its properties serve as a just summation of the portrayal.

Axel Rüger, “Egbert van der Poel, A View of Delft after the Explosion of 1654” in Vermeer and the Delft School, exhibition catalog, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 8 - May 27, 2001, p. 326.

6 J. W. Salomonson, op. cit., pp. 13 - 15, 62.

7 Frithjof van Thienen, Costume of the Western World, The Great Age of Holland 1600-60, George G. Harrap and Company Ltd., London, 1951, pp. 12, 24-25.

8 Santine M. Levey and Patricia Wardle, The Finishing Touch, Frederiksbourg Museum, Denmark, 1994, p. 4.

9 Jack Tressidder, ed., “Pearls” in The Complete Dictionary of Symbols, Chronicle Books, L.L.C., 2004, pp. 376 - 377.

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3.

FOLLOWER OF OSIAS BEERT I (Circa 1605 – 1630) Almonds, Oysters, Sweets, Chestnuts, and Wine on a Wooden Table bears signature D. D. Heem with the second and third initials conjoined in the lower left foreground oil on panel 181⁄8 x 25¾ inches (46.1 x 68.5 cm.) provenance

Arot Collection M. Arot sale, Galerie Fievez, Brussels, October 29, 1928, lot 52, plate X (as Jean-David de Heem) D.A. Hoogendijk & Co., Amsterdam, 1932 (as David de Heem) Duits Ltd., Amsterdam & London, from whom acquired by Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam, by 1933, inventory number 2567 (as David de Heem) Looted by Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, July 1940, who sold it to Alois Miedel, then owner of Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker, Amsterdam, 1940 Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker-Miedel sale, Hans W. Lange, Berlin, December 3-4, 1940, lot 23, plate 20 (attribution changed by Walther Bernt to Osias Beert II) Anonymous sale, Kunsthaus Lempertz, Cologne, May 22-27, 1957, lot 1182, illustrated (as Osias Beert II) Gemälde-Galerie Abels, Cologne, 1957 Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler, Munich, until December 1957 (as Osias Beert) where purchased by Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam (as Osias Beert) who sold it to F. Thornton, Antwerp, February 1958 Private Collection, The Hague, by 1969 Private Collection, France Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, December 2, 2008, lot 23 (as Follower of Osias Beert I) Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, October 28, 2009, lot 50 (as Follower of Osias Beert I) Restituted to Marei von Saher, heir to Jacques Goudstikker, March 2012 “Collection of Jacques Goudstikker sale”, Christie’s, New York, June 3, 2015, lot 50 (as Circle of Osias Beert I) exhibited

Amsterdam, D.A. Hoogendijk & Co., Catalogus van schilderijen van weinig bekende meesters uit de zeventiende eeuw, June 15 - July 15, 1932, no. 39 (as David de Heem) Amsterdam, Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker, Het Stilleven, February 18 - March 26, 1933, no. 138 (as David de Heem) The Hague, Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, Oude Kunst, October 20 – November 17, 1934, no. 16 (as David de Heem) literature

H. P. Bremmer, Beeldende Kunst, no. 43, jaargang 18, W. Scherjon, Utrecht, 1931, illustrated (as D. de Heem) Catalogus van schilderijen van weinig bekende meesters uit de zeventiende eeuw, D.A. Hoogendijk & Co., Amsterdam, June 15 – July 15, 1932, no. 39, p. 16 (as David de Heem) Het Stilleven, exhibition catalog, Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker, Amsterdam, February 18-March 26, 1933, no.

138, unpaginated (as David de Heem) George Isarlov, “L’Exposition de la Nature Morte à Amsterdam” in Formes, no. 32, Editions des Quatre Chemins, Paris, Summer 1933, p. 361, fn. 5, illustrated (as David de Heem I) Oude Kunst, Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, The Hague, October 20 - November 17, 1934, no. 16, unpaginated (as David de Heem) W. Jos de Gruyter, Het Vaderland, Novmber 10, 1934 (as David de Heem) Continued

Art and Auctions, volume I, no. 12, Van Kouteren’s Publishing Co., Ltd., Rotterdam, July 1957, p. 341, illustrated (as Osias Beert) A.P. de Mirimonde, “Musique et symbolisme chez Jan-Davidszoon de Heem, Cornelis-Janszoon et Jan II Janszoon de Heem” in Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1969, p. 245 (as one of three known works signed by David de Heem) Sam Segal, A Prosperous Past, The Sumptuous Still Life in the Netherlands 1600-1700, SDU Publishers, The Hague, 1988, p. 229 (as another version of Still Life with the Rich Man and Poor Lazarus by Osias Beert I) “De 14 nooit geveilde werken van Goudstikker-erfgename Marei von Saher” in NRC.NL>in beeld, May 7, 2015, p. 6, illustrated (as Osias Beert I) The depiction of this sumptuous still life derives from imagery used by Osias Beert I and Frans Francken I to illustrate the story The Rich Man and Poor Lazarus, a parable of greed and deprivation. A direct reflection of this tale can be found in the remarkable history of this panel during the course of the twentieth century.

The earliest known provenance for this tempting array of painted delights is the Arot Collection, which encompassed a distinguished group of European paintings that ranged from the fifteenth to twentieth centuries.

The collection was sold by Galerie Fievez, Brussels, on October 29, 1928. Misinterpreting the David de Heem signature, the panel was catalogued as by Jean-David de Heem. By 1932 the painting was with D.A. Hoogendijk & Co., a gallery which ranked among the top old master dealers in Amsterdam. It was included in their 1932 exhibition of seventeenth century masters as the work of David de Heem.1 The next recorded owner is Duits, Ltd., a firm that specialized in Dutch and Flemish old master paintings. It first opened in Dordrecht in 1836 and then relocated to Amsterdam in 1875, later opening a branch in London in 1920. By 1933 Jacques Goudstikker had purchased the work from Duits and recorded the transaction in pounds in his inventory book under no. 2567.

Goudstikker was one of the most important Dutch art dealers of the period. His firm Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker was located in a seventeenth century canal house on the Herengracht in Amsterdam. His interest in old masters ranged from Italian gold ground and Renaissance works to early Netherlandish and German paintings, Dutch and Flemish seventeenth century paintings, to the French and Italian Rococo. He mounted extraordinary shows in the 1930s, innovatively focusing on thematic exhibitions,2 such as the wide-ranging Het Stilleven that included our panel (no.138, as by David de Heem). The show consisted of 362 still lifes dating from the fifteenth to twentieth century. In reviewing the exhibition in Formes, George Isarlov pointed to the so-called David de Heem as representative of a growing international style among such painters as Georg Flegel, Peter Binoit, Louise Moillon, Jacob van Es, Floris van Dijck, and Clara Peeters. The article’s nine illustrations, among which this work was included, were described by Isarlov as the principal works of the show.3

David de Heem was traditionally believed to have been born in Utrecht, possibly in 1570, and to have died in Antwerp, perhaps in 1632.

He was categorized as a “still-life painter of distinction”. – See John Denison Champlin, Jr. & Charles C. Perkins, eds., “David de Heem” in Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, volume II, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1900, p. 222. Although the father of Jan Davidsz. de Heem is often recorded as David de Heem I, in actuality he was not a painter, and his correct name was David van Antwerpen.

Clarification given in a written communication from Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, dated December 28, 2015.

2 Peter Sutton, “Director’s Preface” and “Jacques Goudstikker (1891-1940): Art Dealer, Impresario and Tastemaker” in Reclaimed Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker, exhibition catalog, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut, May 10 - September 7, 2008, and The Jewish Museum, New York, March 12 – August 2, 2009, pp. 10, 25.

3 George Isarlov, op. cit., pp. 360-361.

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In 1934 the painting was loaned to the exhibition, Oude Kunst, held at Kunsthandel G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar in The Hague. Once again it was singled out, along with a few others, as a highlight of the show. W. Jos de Gruyter, then visual arts editor for Het Vaderland, wrote “Vooral menig stilleven mag hier zonder voorbehoud worden: ... nr.16 van David de Heem ... stuk voor stuk kostelijke schilderijen.” (In particular many still lifes can be lauded here unreservedly: [mentions a few others] no. 16 by David de Heem, ... one after the other splendid paintings.)

Goudstikker advised important clients, among them by the early 1930s Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza. He sold to major museums including the Rijksmuseum; Mauritshuis; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; National Gallery, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Yet such renowned success served to make Goudstikker a prime target once the Nazis invaded on May 10, 1940. Miraculously, on May 13th, accompanied by his wife Dési and young son Edward, he managed to book passage on the cargo ship SS Bodegraven bound for Dover. As the ship was teeming with fleeing refugees, conditions on board were deplorable. That night, unable to sleep in the airless hold the family had been crammed into, Goudstikker sought relief on the blacked-out deck. In the darkness he fell through an open hatch and was killed. When the body was recovered a small notebook was found containing details on the 1,113 artworks of his inventory. This notebook would come to be known as the Blackbook.4 Two weeks after Goudstikker’s death Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering visited his gallery. Eager to be next in line in the plundering of Goudstikker’s stock after Adolf Hitler had his pick; the curator of the collection at his country estate Carinhall, Walter Andreas Hofer, had already traveled to Holland on May 20th. Shortly thereafter, a sale of the inventory, gallery, and properties was arranged.5 Kajetan Mühlmann, a captain in the SS who also held a Ph.D. in art history, and had been in charge of the Sonderbeauftragten fur die Erfassung der Kunst und Kulturschätze (Special Commission for the Disposition of Art and Cultural Treasures) in Poland, had by the end of May set up an office in The Hague. One of his initial acts was to establish bank accounts for Hitler, Goering, and other officials for purchases. The money transfers for the Goudstikker sales were conducted by Lipmann, Rosenthal & Co., Amsterdam, which became the “official” bank for Mühlmann’s operation. Such “sales” were arranged in this manner in order to present an image of legality.6 The terms of the Goudstikker sale were contracted by Hofer. Goudstikker’s mother Emilie, who had chosen to remain in Holland, owned a minority block of shares in the firm and was forced to consent to the sale.

Goudstikker’s wife Dési by this point had safely reached America. As the majority shareholder, she was contacted by members of the gallery’s staff for her agreement to the sale. Although she refused, the proceedings continued.

In July 1940 Goering acquired all of Goudstikker’s stock, and the Bavarian banker Alois Miedl the real estate and gallery, as well as the firm’s name.7 Staff members Jan Dik, Sr. and Arie Albertus ten Broek signed the document confirming the deal for which each received 180,000 guilders as a reward. Jan Dik, Jr., was given 25,000 guilders.8 Continued

Lynn H. Nicholas, “A Long Odyssey: the Goudstikker Collection” in Important Old Master Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker, April 1, 2007, New York, pp. 9-10.; Peter Sutton, op. cit., pp. 10, 29; and Yehudit Shendar & Niv Goldberg, “The Insatiable Pursuit of Art, The Jacques Goudstikker Collection and Nazi Art Looting” in Reclaimed, op. cit., pp. 38-39, 46.

5 Yehudit Shendar & Niv Goldberg, op. cit., p. 47.

6 Lynn H. Nicholas, The Rape of Europa, Vintage Books, New York, 1995, p. 48; Yehudit Shendar & Niv Goldberg, op. cit., p. 48; and “Kajetan Mühlmann” on Dictionary of Art Historians, website.

7 Yehudit Shendar & Niv Goldberg, op. cit., p. 47; and Lawrence M. Kaye, “The Restitution of the Goudstikker Collection” in Reclaimed, op. cit., p. 57.

8 “1940 Verkoop J. Goudstikker N.V. aan Miedlen Goring” in Rapportage Restitutiecommissie, section 1.15.

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Immediately the sorting out process of the artworks began and continued throughout the fall in both Holland and Carinhall, probably carried out by Hofer.9 At some point during this period Goering sold the “David de Heem” back to Miedl. Miedl, having had some prior experience in the buying and selling of artworks with the aid of Hofer, through the acquisition of the Goudstikker firm, became one of the premier art dealers in Europe. Yet greed was not the sole motivating factor. Miedl had a Jewish wife who survived solely due to the Reichsmarschall’s protection and Miedl’s usefulness in supplying him with artworks and serving as a clearing house for other looted collections. Miedl did put the funds paid for the purchase of the gallery into a special account for Goudstikker’s mother and wife, although by the end of the war they were largely depleted. He further saved Goudstikker’s mother Emilie from being sent to the concentration camps. Miedl would prove hugely successful in a “hot” wartime art market selling to the Nazi elite, German museums, and wealthy collectors. Only in 1944 with Goering’s power diminished and the war going badly did Miedl and his wife flee to Spain.10 In December 1940 the Hans W. Lange auction house in Berlin sold the “David de Heem” where it had been consigned by Miedl. Hans W. Lange specialized in sales of looted material from all over Europe and maintained close ties with the key figures who orchestrated the pillaging.11 The cataloger was Walther Bernt, who later published one of the standard references in the field, The Netherlandish Painters of the Seventeenth Century. It was at this point that the attribution was changed to Osias Beert II.12 Bernt justified the change by relating it to two similar works by Beert recently exhibited at the Galerie Stein, Paris, show, Natures Mortes des 17e et 18e siècles from May 15 - June 3, 1939, nos. 4 & 5. He further related the glass filled with red wine to a very similarly fluted one in a panel in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble.13 Interestingly also in the catalog entry, Bernt included the 1933 Amsterdam Het Stilleven exhibition as well as its write-up in the Formes review, yet deleted the name of Goudstikker completely.

The purchaser of the painting at the auction is unknown. The work next appears again as Osias Beert II in a Lempertz auction in Cologne on May 22-27, 1957. The cataloguing is very similar to that of the Lange sale, including the still-life show and Formes review and again makes no reference to Goudstikker. Presumably the purchaser was Gemälde-Galerie Abels, Cologne, as they were in possession of the work shortly thereafter.14 They specialized in paintings from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries as well as graphic arts.

The painting is next documented as being in the possession of Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler in Munich. A leading gallery in Germany since shortly after its founding in 1880, the firm specialized in paintings, sculpture, and drawings from the late middle ages through the eighteenth century. In December 1957 Böhler sold the work to Kunstandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam.

Nancy H. Yeide, Beyond the dreams of avarice: the Hermann Goering collection, Laurel Publishing, Dallas, Texas, 2009, p. 12.

Lynn H. Nicholas, op. cit., 1995, pp. 105-106; and 2007, p. 10.

11 “Post-War reports: Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945-1946 and ALIU Red Flag Names List and Index” on lootedart. com website (The Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945).

12 Osias Beert II, the son of Osias Beert I, was probably born in Antwerp circa 1620 and is believed to have spent his life there, dying circa 1678. In 1644 he was admitted to the guild as a master’s son. There is only one recorded and presumed example of his work, a still life with oysters and herring in a Christie’s London sale, October 12, 1956, signed and dated Osias ... 1650, but it was not reproduced and its present location is unknown. - See Adriaan van der Willigen & Fred G. Meijer, “Osias (II) Beert” in A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Primavera Press, Leiden, 2003, p 32.

13 At the time the work in Grenoble was attributed to Louise Moillon, but is now given to Osias Beert I, see inv.no. MG 434 – Deux vases de fleurs et trois plats de fruits avec un coquetier et une verre, oil on panel, 52 x 73 cm..

14 Inscribed on the photocard from the Lempertz sale – “picture in possession of Abels, Cologne”.

9

10

De Boer was founded in 1922 and by the 1930s was among the major galleries in Amsterdam. Following Jacques Goudstikker’s lead they also organized art historical exhibitions and catalogs that focused on such subjects as Joos de Momper, the younger members of the Brueghel family and flower still lifes. After Goudstikker’s departure, Pieter de Boer became head of the Dutch Association of Art Dealers. Unfortunately the firm never had the opportunity to publish this work as it sold very quickly. On February 26, 1958, it was acquired by a private collector from Antwerp, F. Thornton.15 The work eventually passed to a private collection in France and then surfaced in two auctions at Christie’s in London on December 2, 2008, and October 28, 2009. Labeled as Follower of Osias Beert I, all of the provenance, exhibition history, and literature connected to the work had disappeared. The David de Heem signature had been painted over. At some point after these sales it came to the attention of the Goudstikker Provenance Project, which assists Jacques Goudstikker’s descendants in locating and providing scholarly documentation on the family’s lost works. The original restitution to Marei von Saher, the wife of Jacques’ son Edward, by the Dutch government was in 2006 and consisted of 202 art works. From the 1,113 works looted, a number of others have since surfaced, but the majority remain missing.16 This work was restituted to the family in March 2012.

At Christie’s New York on June 3, 2015, along with other restituted Goudstikker works, this painting again fell under the hammer. Although its known provenance was almost fully catalogued, its pertinent exhibition history and literature were missing. Most importantly, its singular story remained untold. This painting was prized by the successive stream of collectors and important dealers who owned it throughout the course of the twentieth century as well as praised in the accompanying literature as either a rare David de Heem or Osias Beert I or II. It was snatched by the most avaricious collector of the century Hermann Goering. Its owner was killed in the resultant flight and his family betrayed by the gallery’s remaining staff. Its documentation gradually became detached and the telltale signature painted over. After seventy-two years it was finally returned to its rightful owner. Its history exemplifies the fact that the naming of the artist is a secondary concern. The panel’s intrinsic value lies in the beauty of its imagery. Intended for admiration as well as moral contemplation when executed in the early part of the seventeenth century, its subsequent history fulfills the painter’s intent.

As originally stated, the composition replicates the still life portion of a work currently thought to have been jointly executed by Osias Beert I and Frans Francken I called Still Life with Rich Man and Poor Lazarus, now in a private collection in England.17 In this composition the still life fills the majority of the picture plane with the upper right quadrant depicting the rich man at a table among a group of young, elegantly dressed diners while Lazarus in rags, with dogs licking his wounds, is seated on the floor starving and begging.

Continued

Hans Buijs and Ger Luijten, eds., Goltzius to Van Gogh, Drawings and Paintings from the P. & N. De Boer Foundation, Thoth Publishers, Bussum, 2014; and written communication with Kunsthandel P. de Boer dated July 16, 2015.

16 Yehudit Shendar & Niv Goldberg, op. cit., p. 47; and Clemens Toussaint, “How to Find One Thousand Paintings, The Fate of Jacques Goudstikker’s Looted Art Collection” in Reclaimed, op. cit., pp. 63, 68.

17 “Osias Beert I and Frans Francken I, Stilleven van Oesters a Koekjes; op de achtergrond Lazarus en de rijke man”, on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.

15

By the second quarter of the seventeenth century the inclusion of such moralistic background scenes had faded, as the symbolic meaning of the rich man’s meal had become abundantly clear.18 Although presented with such a dazzling array of delights, one can imagine the seventeenth century viewer responding with only a modicum of disdain. From a high vantage point on a wooden table top that rises as it recedes into the background, the viewer is presented in the left foreground with an overflowing Wan Li bowl of peeled almonds mixed with candied almonds (today called “Jordan almonds”) and candied cinnamon sticks. Such sticks are called kapittelstokjes in Dutch after the marker used as a place holder in the Bible by a minister.19 To the right are oysters on a pewter platter. Oysters were regarded as a delicacy; and particularly favored in port cities like Antwerp, the composition’s city of origin.20 On the left, two lovely façon de Venise glasses, in which the light from the studio’s window is reflected, are filled with white and red wine.21 In the center, an ornate silver tazza decorated with bejeweled seahorses, holds an array of tempting sweets. These include a rectangular almond paste tartlet, a tartlet topped with three different types of grapes, round almond paste tartlets, biscotti, as well as white and red molded letters.

Bakers in the Netherlands belonged to guilds and their recipes were closely guarded secrets.22 Such confections would have ranked among their highest achievements and been an incredible luxury.23 Chestnuts on a pewter plate as well as a cracked one are to the right of the tazza. Chestnuts appeared in the marketplace in autumn and perhaps can be viewed as a metaphor for the coming of winter. They were boiled and eaten as a starch. They were also an ingredient in fine stews or, alternatively, they could be served with melted butter sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.24 The large white roll is another token of sumptuous living, as it was expensive in comparison with whole wheat or rye the standard fare.25 Behind the tazza is another plate of sweets.

We are very grateful to Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, and the food historian Peter G. Rose for their invaluable assistance in the writing of this entry.

Sam Segal, op. cit., p. 42.

Written communication from the food historian Peter G. Rose dated July 6, 2015.

20 E. de Jongh, “Jacob Foppens van Es” in Still-Life in the Age of Rembrandt, Auckland City Art Gallery, 1982, p. 129.

21 Such glasses were made in imitation of Venetian ones in locations other than Venice. They were popular throughout Europe, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. - see the Corning Museum of Glass, www.cmog.org/glass.

22 Peter G. Rose, “Job Berckheyde, Baker” in Matters of Taste, Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Life, Albany Institute of History & Art, 2007, p. 34; and Peter G. Rose, 2015, op. cit..

23 Ingvaar Bergström, “Osias Beert the Elder, Fruit, Nuts, Wine and Sweets on a Ledge” in Still Lifes of the Golden Age, exhibition catalog, National Gallery of Art, Washington, May 14 - September 4, 1989, p. 96.

24 Donna R. Barnes & Peter G. Rose, “Adriaen Coorte, Chestnuts on a Ledge” in Matters of Taste, op. cit., p. 70.

25 Henry D. Gregory, “Narrative and Meaning in Pieter Claesz’s Still Life” in Pieter Claesz, Master of Haarlem Still Life, exhibition catalog, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, November 27, 2004 – April 4, 2005, p. 99.

18 19

4.

SYBRAND VAN BEEST (The Hague (?) 1606/1620 – Amsterdam 1674) A Quack Praising his Merchandise near the Munt Tower, Amsterdam signed in the lower right Beest oil on panel 27 x 23 inches (69.5 x 59.5 cm.) provenance

(probably) Anonymous sale, Philippus van der Schley, Amsterdam, July 10, 1805, lot 37, where bought by Gruiter Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, July 20, 1973, lot 244, where bought by Messium Art market, Zurich, 1975, from whom acquired by Private Collection, New York, until 2005, where purchased by Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York, who sold it 2006 to Private Collection, The Netherlands, until the present time literature

E. Bénézit, “Sybrand van Beest” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 1, Libraire Gründ, Paris, 1976, p. 575 Greg Forster, The Contested Public Square, InterVarsity Press, Grove, Illinois, 2008 (reproduced for the cover illustration) Sybrand van Beest was probably born in The Hague, where as a boy he came into the service of Pieter van Veen, a successful lawyer and amateur artist, as personal secretary. Van Veen may have inspired him to paint, and perhaps gave him his first lessons. After Pieter van Veen’s death in 1629, van Beest shared a house with the latter’s unmarried son, Symon, an amateur painter like his father, until Symon’s death in 1661. Van Beest’s (early) style is somewhat reminiscent of that of Adriaen van de Venne, under whom he may have studied. He did not join the guild at The Hague until 1640, although earlier dated works are known. He was a co-founder of the Confrerie Pictura, The Hague association of artist-painters, in 1656, of which organization he was a warden during the early 1660s. By 1670 he had moved to Amsterdam, where he died.

Sybrand van Beest is mainly known for his animated townscapes, often with vegetable or pig markets, while he also painted domestic genre scenes and some history pieces and historical scenes, among them the visit of the Russian envoy to The Hague in 1631.

The location of the present scene is a well-known spot in Amsterdam; the tower is the Munttoren, built in 1620, which still stands. It is located at the end of a street that leads to Dam Square, Kalverstraat, on which street van Beest lived. The tower was built after a design of Hendrick de Keyser, on the spot of a medieval gatehouse, which had burned down in 1618. From 1672, the adjacent building was used to strike coins, which gave it the name Munt.

The Amsterdam location, the style of painting and the dress of the figures all indicate that this is a late work by van Beest, painted after his move to Amsterdam, so during the first half of the 1670s. The scene is no less lively than van Beest’s earlier market scenes, but the emphasis is much stronger on the architectural setting, which it appears to be topographically accurate. In his Hague market scenes landmarks such as the church tower, are rendered accurately, while the setting, as a whole, appears to be more or less fictive. Perhaps to compensate for the dominance of the architecture, van Beest has introduced several figures pointing at the central scene.

Continued

Even though medical science was progressing enormously during the seventeenth century, quacks still played an important role. They offered their pills and potions on markets and fairs, traveling from town to town. They were often shown -- and ridiculed -- in paintings and prints, the latter often with added mottos such as ‘The world wants to be deceived’. Van Beest shows the quack presenting his wares on scaffolding, with a well-dressed assistant holding up his certificate with ‘official’ seals, while the woman seated at the back may well act as a cured patient. The quack has drawn quite a crowd, men women and children, and attracts the attention of a young man, running towards the scene so as not to miss anything, and of a maid carrying out laundry, as well as of the occupants of the house across the street. A man and a woman feeding her baby, seated under the tree, appear to be discussing the quack’s claims. The little wooden building adjacent to the Munt building appears to be used for doing laundry in. The maid carrying out her basket of sheets at the left is probably on her way to it, while the sitting man also appears to have brought a basket of linen.

Fred G. Meijer Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie The Hague

5.

GIACOMO GUARDI (Venice 1764 – Venice 1835) A Regatta on the Grand Canal, Venice inscribed on the reverse La Regatta Sul Canal Grande, and stamped with a red wax seal with the coat-of-arms of the Holy Roman Empire and LOS STEMPL K.K.H.Z0LL LEG (?) oil on panel 93⁄8 x 14 inches (23.2 x 35.5 cm.) provenance

(presumably) Andrew Fountaine IV, Narford Hall, Norfolk, thence by descent Pictures from the celebrated Fountaine Collection, removed from Narford Hall, Norfolk, chiefly formed by Sir Andrew Fountaine in the early part of the last century, Christie’s, London, July 7, 1894, lot 44, where purchased by Thomas Agnew & Sons, London Sir Julian Goldsmid, by late 1894 Catalogue of the Highly Important Collection of Pictures formed by The Right Honourable Sir Julian Goldsmid, Bart., P.C., M.P., Deceased, Christie’s, London, June 13, 1896, lot 74, where purchased by Wallis Private Collection, California, until 2015 exhibited

London, The New Gallery, Exhibition of Venetian Art, December 31, 1894 - April 6, 1895, no. 199 (lent by Sir Julian Goldsmid, Bart., M.P.) New York, Blakeslee Galleries, Exhibition of Early English, Dutch and Flemish Paintings, 1898, unpaginated, no.

21, illustrated literature

“Sales” in The Athenaeum, no. 3481, John C. Francis, London, July 14, 1894, p. 73 Sir W. Farrer, “A Record Bid” in The Artist and Journal of Home Culture, volume XV, no. 176, August 1894, p.

312 Alfred Trumble, “Notes and Novelties” in The Collector, volume V, New York, October 1894, p. 254 “Venetian Art at the New Gallery” in The Speaker, volume X, London, January 5, 1895, p. 17 “Concours et Expositions” in La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité, Supplement a la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Aux Bureaux de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1895, p. 2 “The Goldsmid Pictures” in The Times, London, June 15, 1896, p. 15 “Sales” in The Athenaeum, no. 3582, John C. Francis, London, June 20, 1896, p. 15 The Sale Prices of 1896, An Annual Report of Sales by Auction of Objects of Artistic and Antiquarian Interest, volume I, Henry Grant, London, 1897, p. 280, no. 3742 William Roberts, “The Goldsmid Sale” in Memorials of Christie’s, A Record of Art Sales from 1766 to 1896, volume II, George Bell & Sons, London, 1897, p. 292 H. Mireur, “Francesco Guardi” in Dictionnaire des Ventes D’Art Faites en France et à L’Etranger pendant Les XVIIIe & XIXe Siècles, volume III, Maison D’Éditions D’Oeuvres Artistiques, 1912, p. 403 Algernon Graves, “Francesco Guardi” in Art Sales from Early in the Eighteenth Century to Early in the Twentieth Century, London, 1918, p. 382 Continued

A tradition in Venice since 1300, the Regattas, of which there were typically four a year, drew crowds from all over Europe. The event showcased the prowess of Venetian gondoliers, and interest in the competition cut across class lines. Although anyone could enter the race, the number of boats was limited, and preference was given to gondoliers from certain families. Viewed by the Venetians as an esteemed occupation, a hierarchy existed based upon lineage as well as past performances at these races. The course was roughly four miles long and the prizes were usually four flags of different colors accompanied by money that corresponded with the rank achieved. The nobility took intense interest in these events and different factions grew around favored participants. The barges of the rich were distinguishable by their decorations, often of feathers, canopies, and drapery. After the Regatta, patrons of the winners routinely supplemented their prizes.1 This would obviously have been a popular subject for a painting.

Along the Grand Canal, under a sun-filled sky, in midcourse the Regatta flashes before the viewer. Visible in the left foreground are the steps of the Palazzo Foscari and the Palazzo Balbi, its terraces adorned with tapestries.

Nearby, on the water, is the plumed and draped macchina, or floating barge, which marked the finish line on the return as well as providing seats for the guests of honor. Evident in the right foreground are the splendidly festooned barges of the well-to-do. Dozens of gondolas filled with spectators line the canal. In the far distance the focal point of the Rialto Bridge looms. Standard practice for many of the vedute painters was the frequent borrowing of whole or parts of a composition from one another. This work most closely corresponds with a drawing by Giacomo’s father, Francesco Guardi, A Regatta on the Grand Canal, Venice now in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1902.0617.4, pen and brown ink, brown wash over black chalk on paper, 239 x 350 mm.). Almost identical in size, the painting replicates the British Museum drawing with the exception of additional boats and the deletion of an exaggerated Campanile of San Bartolomeo. Giacomo employs his father’s colors of grayish-green with brown tints for the placid water, red-browns for the pavement and shadowed buildings, the same color that resonates through the facades bathed in sunlight, and a thin-clouded blue sky tinged with a pink horizon. Further emulation is evident in the schematic brushwork that reduces form to its bare essentials. The painting’s composition is perfectly balanced by the contrasting verticality of the lining villas complemented by the white accents of the gondoliers’ oars and prows, offset by the wide expanse of water and distant vantage point, which creates a greater sense of depth in this diminutive panel. Meant to evoke rather than recreate the race, Giacomo provides an impressionistic rendering of the experience and its surroundings.

Francesco Guardi’s (1712-1793) studio was among the most successful in Venice in the selling of vedute views.

Giacomo Guardi was Francesco’s youngest son who is thought to have begun working with his father when he was about sixteen. From 1780 until Francesco’s death, it is clear that a number of works are collaborations.2 For examples Antonio Morassi points to the figures of rowers in the drawing, Regata in Volta di Canal, private collection, Milan (see Morassi op. cit. volume I, no. 302, p. 367, volume II, no. 334) as well as Procession of Gondolas in the Bacino di San Marco, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 11.1451) for the obvious participation of Giacomo. The staffage in these examples directly reflect those of our panel. Morassi further states that a clear distinction between the two is not always easy as it was Giacomo’s job to ensure that the transition from one hand to the next was seamless. Everything that the workshop produced was labeled as by Francesco Guardi. After the death of his father, Giacomo inherited the studio, but it is believed that shortly thereafter gave up painting completely to produce only drawings and views in tempera.3 Bram de Klerck described their collaborative efforts in the Rijksmuseum exhibition catalogue Painters of Venice, The Story of the Venetian ‘Veduta’ as “so successful was Giacomo at imitating his father that where several works are concerned, the last word on attribution has not yet been spoken.”4 “The Venetian Regatta” in The Literary Magnet of the Belles Lettres, Science, and the Fine Arts, volume III, part XVI, George Wightman, London, 1825, pp. 45-46, 51; and Kathryn Hinds, Venice and its Merchant Empire, Benchmark Books, New York, 2002, p. 57.

2 Antonio Morassi, Guardi I dipinti, volume I, Gruppo Editoriale Electa, Venice, 1984, p. 287.

3 Ibid, pp. 288, 290.

4 Bram de Klerck, “Francesco Guardi” in Painters of Venice, The Story of the Venetian “Veduta”, exhibition catalog, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1990, p. 216.

1

This statement certainly held true for A Regatta on the Grand Canal, Venice as in all the recorded provenance, exhibitions, and literature, the panel was always regarded as a work by Francesco Guardi. The first documented ownership of the panel was with the Fountaine Family at Narford Hall, Norfolk. Sir Andrew Fountaine II (16761753) built the house and acquired a large number of paintings and objects on the Grand Tour, including the most important collection of majolica and Limoges enamels in Europe. In 1835 Andrew Fountaine IV (18081873) inherited Narford Hall and compiled inventories of its collections.5 A Regatta on the Grand Canal, Venice does not appear to be included among those inventories, which leads to the assumption that the panel was purchased by Andrew Fountaine IV, as he too became a significant collector of important works of art.6 Upon his death the painting collection descended in the family until sold by Christie’s on July 7, 1894. Both The Athenaeum and The Collector mention it among the highlights of the auction as does The Artist which notes its acquisition by the venerable firm of Thomas Agnew & Sons. Agnew’s must have sold it quite quickly as the painting is in the collection of Sir Julian Goldsmid (1838-1896) by the end of the year. Goldsmid was among the wealthiest and most charitable figures of the period, and served as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons for Honiton, Rochester, and lastly St. Pancras. He was also a trained lawyer and businessman. From his uncle Francis Goldsmid (1807-1878), he inherited the title of Baronet as well as quite a lot of property and business interests which included the Imperial Continents Gas Association, the Continental Gas Union and the Brighton Railway Company. His London home in Piccadilly, as well as the family seat of Somerhill House in Kent, housed his extensive art collection.7 From 1894-1895 the Guardi was lent to the landmark Exhibition of Venetian Art at The New Gallery, London. The Speaker, in a January 1895 review of the show, remarked on the Regatta (no. 189) along with two others (nos. 188 & 196) as “three superb views of Venice by [Francesco] Guardi”...” here he is at his best.”8 From the critic of La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, of the five hundred diverse works of art and objects on view, only the Regatta along with seven other paintings, were given individual mention.

On June 13, 1896, shortly after the death of Goldsmid, Christie’s sold his painting collection. Once again the Guardi was singled out by The Times and The Athenaeum in their reviews of the sale, as well as mentioned in the annals of the Memorials of Christie’s, published in 1897, which focused on collectors and objects from their most important auctions. Further, its inclusion in three books devoted to the recording of art prices, denotes the importance placed on this panel, as their concern was the documenting of “famous pictures.”9 All that is known of the purchaser of the Guardi at the Goldsmid sale is the name Wallis. The painting was next included in an old master exhibition at Blakeslee Galleries, New York in 1898. Afterwards, the Guardi disappeared, not to be seen again until its recent discovery in a California collection where it had been for decades.

An early work by Giacomo Guardi, executed while working with his father Francesco or shortly after his death, A Regatta on the Grand Canal, Venice is a masterwork among his oeuvre. While capturing Venice at its liveliest, the painting’s history further underscores the level of his proficiency. Trained to emulate his father seamlessly, for over two hundred years Giacomo’s achievement was never in doubt. The painting’s reemergence and subsequent recognition as a work by Giacomo Guardi exemplify the skill of an independent master.

We would like to thank Charles Beddington for confirming this painting to be by Giacomo Guardi, and for his assistance in the writing of this entry.

William Roberts, “The Fountaine Sale” in Memorials of Christie’s, A Record of Art Sales from 1766 to 1896, op. cit., pp. 62-63; and Jorg Rasmussen, Italian Majolica in the Robert Lehman Collection, volume X, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1989, pp. 234, 236.

6 Written communications from Charles Beddington, dated September 11, 2015, and September 30, 2015.

7 “Death of Sir Julian Goldsmid” in The New York Times, January 8, 1896; and “Sir Julian Goldsmid 1838-1896” on www.shorehamfort. co.uk. website.

8 The Speaker, op. cit., p 17.

9 Algernon Graves, “Preface to Vol. I” in op. cit., unpaginated.

5

6.

PIETER CHRISTOFFEL WONDER (Utrecht 1777 – Amsterdam 1852) Eene Oliekoekenbakster bij Kaarslicht (A Doughnut Maker by Candlelight) signed and dated P. C. Wonder. F 1815 in the lower center oil on panel 15 x 12¾ inches (38.4 x 32.6 cm.) provenance

C. Jacopssen, Brussels C. Jacopssen sale, Catalogue d’une Riche Collection de Tableaux, Capitaux et de Premier Ordre des Écoles Modernes Flamande, Hollandaise et Française, Barbe, Brussels, October 29, 1841, lot 79, where bought by Lambert-Jean Nieuwenhuys, Brussels Catalogue des Tableaux du Cabinet de Feu M. Jean-Lambert Nieuwenhuys, père, Vergote & De Doncker, Brussels, April 3, 1862, lot 19, where bought by Etienne Le Roy, Brussels J. P. Gilkinet, Liége Catalogue de Tableaux Anciens et Modernes des Écoles Flamande, Hollandaise et Française appartenant à M. Gilkinet, Drouot, Paris, April 18, 1863, lot 20 Private Collection, New York, by December 1981 exhibited

(presumably) Amsterdam, Tentoonstelling der Kunstwerken van Levende Nederlandsche Meesters, October 1816, no.

204 literature

(presumably) J.de Vries, “Beschouwingen van de tentoonstellingen der Kunstwerken van levende meesters, in October 1816, te Amsterdam” in Vaderlandsche Letter – Oefeningen of Tijdschrift van Kunsten en Wetenschappen waarin de Boeken en Schriften, G. S. Leeneman van den Kroe & J. W. Ijntema, Amsterdam, 1816, p. 768 (presumably) “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” in Lijst der Kunstwerken van nog in leven zijnde Nederlandsche meesters, welke zijn toegelaten tot de tentoonstelling van den jare 1816, Amsterdam, 1816-1817, no. 204 (titled Eene Oliekoekenbakster, bij Kaarslicht) Ernest Fillonneau, “Vente de Tableaux, Appartenant à M. Gilkinet” in Moniteur des Arts, no. 320, April 11, 1863, unpaginated G. Franchemont, “Revue des Ventes Publiques, Collection de M. Gilkinet, de Liége” in Moniteur des Arts, no.

323, April 22, 1863, no. 20, unpaginated “Mouvement des Arts, Vente Gilkinet” in La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité, volume I, Supplément à la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1863, p. 201 H. Mireur, “Pierre-Christophe Wonder” in Dictionnaire des Ventes D’Art Faites en France et à l’Etranger pendant Les XVIIIe & XIXe Siècles, volume 7, Maison D’Éditions D’Oeuvres Artistiques, 1912, p. 539 E. Bènèzit, “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 10, Libraire Gründ, Paris, 1976, p. 789 (presumably) Margreet Algra, Pieter Christoffel Wonder (1777-1852): Een Utrechtse Kunstenaar en Zign Milieu, Ph.D. dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, June 1997, pp. 21, 139 After nightfall, by the illumination of a large lantern, a doughnut-maker surrounded by a group of five children is hard at work. Sheltered under a ragged tarp, an old woman seated on a wooden chair grasps in her left hand an Continued

oil-filled skillet set on a trivet while her right hand stokes the flames below. Next to the frying pan is a large bowl of batter. In the right foreground, a young boy peers longingly at the baker with his left hand stuck in what must be an empty pocket. To his right, prudence versus temptation, a small girl stands in contemplation of a coin held in her open palm. In the center background, much to the chagrin of his companions, a boy eagerly bites into his doughnut. Known at the time as olie-koeken, they were balls of dough that were deep-fried and were the forerunners of the modern doughnut. Commonly, they could contain raisins, apples, and almonds. Olie-koeken, along with such other treats as waffles, wafers, and pancakes were regarded as celebratory foods, cooked at home as well as sold on the street and at fairs by bakers that were typically women.1 This panel was executed in 1815 at the height of Wonder’s popularity in the Netherlands. It was probably first exhibited in Amsterdam at the 1816 Tentoonstelling der Kunstwerken van Levende Nederlandsche Meesters under the title of Eene Oliekoekenbakster, bij Kaarslicht. These exhibitions, which after 1814 were only held every two years, were intended to display recent works by the contributors. Catalog descriptions lacked size or support details, but in this case the title and appropriate date certainly match. In the Vanderlandsche Letter – Oefeningen 1816 review, the painting is noted for its pleasing candlelight effect and evocation of Dutch seventeenth century art.2 In this work Wonder recalls Gabriel Metsu’s imagery bathed in the light of Godfried Schalcken.3 In 1841 this work was included in the sale of modern Flemish, Dutch, and French paintings of C. Jacopssen of Brussels. The Barbe catalog described the group as one of the most valuable collections of contemporary paintings formed during the period, composed of painters of the “première ligne” (highest order).4 There the Wonder was acquired by Lambert-Jean Nieuwenhuys (1777-1862) who at the time was regarded as the prince of Belgian art dealers. A painter and art restorer as well, he established an art-dealing dynasty that passed on to his son Christianus Johannes Nieuwenhuys. King William II of the Netherlands was one of his clients. Today important paintings that include his name in their provenance can be found in prominent collections throughout the world.5 Shortly after his death in 1862 an auction of paintings from his collection was held in Brussels. Among the most active buyers at the sale was Etienne Le Roy (1808-1878) whose purchases included the Wonder.

Le Roy had a history of acquiring works from important collections. A renowned expert and art dealer, in 1846 by ministerial decree he was appointed commissaire-expert of the Museé Royal de Peinture et de Sculpture in Brussels, a position he held for the rest of his life. The museum regularly asked his opinion on the attribution, quality, and price of works of art under consideration for acquisition. Le Roy was responsible for some of the most important art sales that took place in Brussels from the 1840s through 1875, and maintained several locations in the city as well as a branch in Paris. In the nineteenth century tremendous weight was given to the history of a painting, as an illustrious provenance was viewed as a confirmation of the work’s value as well as a positive reflection on the buyer’s acumen. Each painting that Le Roy sold was accompanied by a handwritten guarantee that included biographical information on the artist, and a very detailed description of the work, as well as a record of previous owners.6 The Wonder must have sold quite quickly as the following year it was part of the estate sale of the Liége lawyer J. P. Gilkinet. For this auction held at Drouot in Paris, Le Roy catalogued the sale as well as wrote the introduction.

Consisting of both old and modern paintings, the auction was heralded in the press as a rare opportunity for Peter G. Rose, “Dutch Foodways: An American Connection”, pp. 20, 25; in Matters of Taste, Food and Drink in Seventeenth Century Dutch Art and Life, Albany Institute of History & Art, Syracuse University Press, 2002, pp. 20, 25; and Donna R. Barnes, “Egbert van der Poel, A Pancake Woman,” in Ibid, p. 110.

2 “De harmonie was beter in het Kaarslicht of de Oliekoekenbakster, hetwelk juist in den ftijl der ouden, de ware nadering van onzen gelukkigen tijd tot dien van het midden der zeventiende eeuw ons deed kennen” in Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, op. cit., p. 768.

3 Written communication from Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, dated June 28, 2015.

4 C. Jacopssen sale, “Introduction”, op.cit., unpaginated.

5 Noah Charney, Stealing the Mystic Lamb, The True Story of the World’s Most Coveted Masterpiece, Perseus Books Group, New York, 2010, pp. 106-107; and “Lambertus Johannes Nieuwenhuys” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.

6 Katherine Baetjer, “Buying Pictures for New York: The Founding Purchase of 1871” in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 39, 2004, pp. 164165, 172, 181, 183.

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collectors to purchase true treasures.7 Its subsequent success was also reported. The painting then vanished from public record for the next 118 years until it was acquired by a New York collector in 1981.

Pieter Christoffel Wonder was born in Utrecht and as the oldest son of John Jacob Wonder and Anna Geertruy Bargfeld, was destined to join the family’s thriving tannery. These plans were thwarted by Wonder’s artistic talent, recognized early on by such as the important collector Jean Aarnout Bennet of Leiden who purchased a work. Until the age of twenty-five, Wonder seems to have been mainly self-taught. In 1802 he left for Düsseldorf where he studied at the Kurfürstlich-Pfälzische Academy. Wonder also spent a great deal of time copying works at the picture gallery of the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm II, especially those of Rubens and Van Dyck. By 1804 he had returned to Utrecht. There in 1807 along with other artists including Jan Kobell II, he established the Kunstliefde Society. The intent of the organization was to instill a love for painting and drawing among professionals and amateurs alike. Wonder concentrated on painting portraits as well as historical scenes and genre in the manner of Dutch seventeenth century artists. Works by Gerard Terborch, Pieter de Hooch, Casper Netscher and Johannes Vermeer were his main sources of inspiration.8 His candlelight scenes proved particularly popular.

In 1810 Wonder exhibited for the first time at the Tentoonstelling van Levende Meesters (Exhibition of Living Masters) in Amsterdam. Included in his entries was a painting of Father Time now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inventory no. A1163). During a visit to Dordrecht in 1812, Wonder painted portraits of the artists and brothers Abraham and Jacob van Strij, now in the Dordrechts Museum (inventory nos. DM/853/64 and DM/868/63). In 1817 at the annual competition of the Felix Meritis Society in Amsterdam, he was awarded a gold medal for his painting of a musical group. During this period he also taught William Pieter Hoevenaar, Abraham Hendrik Winter, and Christiaan Kramm.9 Besides painting, Wonder worked as an etcher, draftsman, and watercolorist.

Encouraged by the wealthy Scottish art collector Sir John Murray, Wonder moved to London in 1824. There he specialized in portraits and conversation pieces that depicted the British aristocracy. His most famous painting from the period is Sir John Murray’s Art Gallery (private collection, England) for which three oil sketches are in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Done to commemorate the founding of London’s National Gallery, the painting depicts an imagined gallery hung with artworks from famous British collections. Gathered around Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne are George Watson Taylor (a collector of Italian Renaissance paintings), Sir John Murray, the Rev. William Holwell-Carr (art dealer and benefactor to the National Gallery), and Wonder.10 Following Murray’s demise in 1827 commissions dried up and the painter was forced to return to Utrecht in 1832. Once home, Wonder continued to paint mainly portraits and group pieces in the same fashion that had brought him fame in England, but such works came to be increasingly viewed as dated against the growing artistic movements of Romanticism and Realism. By the 1840s, patrons had all but disappeared, and by the time of his death in 1852, he was almost completely forgotten.11 Museums not previously mentioned that have works by the artist include those of Vlissingen, Leiden, The Hague, Otterlo, Paris, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.

We would like to thank Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, and the food historian Peter G. Rose for their much appreciated assistance in the writing of this entry.

Ernest Fillonneau, op. cit., unpaginated.

Biographical information taken from John Denison Champlin, Jr. & Charles C. Perkins, eds., “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” in Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, volume IV, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900, p. 446; Pieter A. Scheen, “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” in Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1880, Uitgeverij Pieter A. Scheen BV, ’s-Gravenhage, p. 593; “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” on rkd. nl (RKD Explore) website; and “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” on Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 1780-1830, resources.huygens.knaw. nl website.

9 “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” on Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 1780-1830, op. cit..

10 Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, volume I, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, p. 438; and “Pieter Christoffel Wonder, Study for Patrons and Lovers of Art” on npg.org.uk website.

11 “Pieter Christoffel Wonder” on Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 1780-1830, op. cit..

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7.

BARTHOLOMEUS JOHANNES VAN HOVE (The Hague 1790 – The Hague 1880) De Grote Houtpoort, Haarlem signed on the boat in the lower right B. VAN HOVE oil on panel 191⁄8 x 26 inches (48.6 x 66 cm.) provenance

Lady V. Braithwaite Lady V. Braithwaite, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Paintings and Drawings, Sotheby’s, London, May 17, 1967, lot 90, where bought by M. Newman, Ltd., London Frost & Reed Ltd., London Vixseboxse Art Galleries, Inc., Cleveland Heights, Ohio Private Collection, Ohio, until 2015 literature

The Connoisseur, volume 166, September 1967, p. XLIV, in an advertisement for M. Newman, Ltd., London, reproduced E. Bénézit, “Bartholomeus-Johannes van Hove” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 5, Libraire Gründ, Paris, 1976, p. 634 In a large panel, under radiant skies, the old fortifications of Haarlem abut the Spaarne River. The Grote Houtpoort rises majestically in the foreground, dominating the scene with its weathervane reaching to the composition’s edge. The Kalistoren Tower, used for the storage of gunpowder, is in the middle with the Kleine Houtpoort visible in the distance. Built in 1570, the Grote Houtpoort was at the end of the Grote Houtstraat, one of the main roads from the Grote Markt that led outside the city walls. Beyond the gate lay the wooded area, called the Haarlemmerwoud. The temperature is mild, over the arched bridge of the Grote Houtpoort, residents contentedly stroll, conversed or stop to admire the view. Below boatmen propel their craft across glasslike waters with shimmering reflections and floating swans. The sense of well-being pervades this orderly view of the city’s great landmarks that dominate its skyline. Yet, although of paramount importance during the Siege of Haarlem by the Spanish in 1572-1573, by the nineteenth century these fortifications were considered useless and subsequently destroyed. The Grote Houtpoort was torn down in 1824, the Kalistoren Tower in 1858, followed by the Kleine Houtpoort in 1873.1 In retrospect, the demolition of these sixteenth century monuments is horrifying; yet destruction in the face of perceived innovation is still regarded as inevitable. Thanks to Van Hove’s meticulous architectural rendering of De Grote Houtpoort we forever retain a vision of Haarlem’s glorious past.

Van Hove devoted his career to the continuation of eighteenth century Holland’s passion for topographical paintings characterized by exacting detail and crystalline clarity. As an adherent to the tenets of Romanticism, a movement that lacked a specific style but embraced an attitude that swerved away from reality to embrace dreams, Van Hove spent his life painting idealized cityscapes. Member of an artistic family, he began his training with his father Hubertus, a gilder and frame-maker. Van Hove’s two sons Huib and Johannes and his grandson Bart were all artists. Andreas Schelfhout was a cousin and Antoine Waldorp a brother-in-law. Van Hove first apprenticed with Johannes Henricus Albertus Antonius Breckenheijmer who painted stage sets. By 1812 he was enrolled at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Later he succeeded Breckenheijmer Continued “Gerrit Berckheyde, De Grote Houtpoort te Haarlem” in Museum Ridder Smidt van Gelder Catalogus I, Antwerpen, 1980, p. 21; Cynthia Lawrence, Gerrit Berckheyde, Davaco Publishers, Doornspijk, 1991, p. 45.

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at the Koninklijke Schouwburg (The Hague Theater) where he became famous for his scenery, panels of which are preserved in the collection of the Amsterdam Theater Museum. By the late 1820s, Van Hove was a drawing professor at the Haagse Tekenacademie (Hague Drawing Academy).2 He was regarded as an “outstanding master” as well as an “excellent teacher” and his pupils were among those that “laid the foundations for a genuine Hague School”.3 His students included his sons Huib and Johannes, as well as Johannes Bosboom, Everhardus Koster, Charles Leickert, Salomon Leonardus Verveer, and Jan Hendrik Weissenbruch among many others.

Van Hove was a founding member as well as the first chairman of the Pulchri Studio in The Hague. He also belonged to Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. In 1847 he was awarded the Order of the Oaken Crown. During the course of his career he also received medals from Felix Meritis in Amsterdam and Pictura in Dordrecht.

According to the art encyclopedia Champlin & Perkins he was further honored by receiving “costly presents from several potentates”. A bit more defined is the number of museums that acquired his works for their permanent collections. These included institutions in the cities of Amsterdam, Delft, Ghent, Haarlem, The Hague, Hamburg, Leiden, Nijmegen, Otterlo, Rotterdam, and Utrecht.4 After the Van Hove emerged from the collection of Lady V. Braithwaite and its subsequent sale by Sotheby’s in London, it was purchased by the venerable firm of M. Newman, Ltd of London. It served as their promotional piece for the 1967 fall season, and was featured in a full-page ad in The Connoisseur. It was next acquired by the important London gallery Frost & Reed Ltd. and then by Vixseboxse Art Galleries, Inc. of Cleveland Heights, Ohio. The town was home to such luminaries as John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937).5 Vixseboxse had opened its doors in 1922, specializing in nineteenth and twentieth century paintings.6 It is presumed that this is where the last owner bought the Van Hove. Its recording in Emmanuel Bénézit’s biographical dictionary of artists attests to the fact that De Grote Houtpoort, Haarlem is regarded as one of the principal works among Van Hove’s oeuvre.

Biographical information taken from Geraldine Norman, “Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove” in Nineteenth Century Painters and Painting: a Dictionary, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, 1977, p. 111; John Sillevis, “Romanticism and Realism” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, exhibition catalog, Royal Academy of Arts, London, and traveling, 1983, p. 41; “Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove” on Rijksmuseum.nl website; and “Bartholomeus van Hove” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.

3 Ronald de Leeuw, “Introduction” in The Hague School, 1983, op. cit., p. 14.

4 Biographical information taken from John Denison Champlin, Jr., Charles C. Perkins eds., “Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove” in Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, volume II, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1900, p. 296; Dr. Ulrich Thieme & Dr. Felix Becker, “Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove” in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, volume XVII, Veb E.A. Seeman Verlag, Leipzig, 1924, p. 575; Pieter A. Scheen, “Bartholomeus Johannes van Hove” in Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1880, Uitgeverij Pieter A. Scheen BV, ‘s-Gravenhage, 1981, p. 231; rijksmuseum.nl website, op. cit.; and rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website, op.cit..

5 Dan Ruminski & Alan Dutka, “The Standard Oil Company: America’s Greatest Monopoly” in Cleveland in the Golden Age, A Stroll Down Millionaire’s Row, The History Press, Charleston, S.C., 2012, unpaginated.

6 “Vixseboxse Gallery – The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History”, Case Western Reserve University, ech.case.edu website.

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8.

ANTON MAUVE (Zaandam 1838 – Arnhem 1888) Three Cows in a Meadow signed A. Mauve F. in the lower right oil on panel 10 x 15½ inches (25.3 x 39.3 cm.) provenance

Private Collection, Santa Barbara, California, until 2001 Norma & Julien Redelé, Maryland, until 2015 exhibited

Easton, Maryland, Academy Art Museum, Mesdag to Mondrian: Dutch Art from the Redelé Collection, June 2 – September 30, 2013 No words could better express the view held in regard to Anton Mauve than those written by Mrs. Arthur Bell shortly after his untimely passing: “Anton Mauve whose death a few years ago was mourned in Holland as a national calamity, takes the highest rank as a painter of landscape with sheep and cattle. His poetic compositions rival in truth of effect and refinement of sentiment those of Corot and Cazin, whilst in some of them there is a pathos as deep as that of Millet, for whom he had a most intense admiration. No modern artist had rendered more faithfully than Mauve the silvery haze veiling the low lying pastures and dunes of the Netherlands; no painter had entered more truly into the life of the sheep-fold and of the cattle paddock, or realized more forcibly the interdependence of men and animals with nature. ... His works are true lyrics of the earth.”1 Mauve began his studies in Haarlem with the animal painter Pieter Frederick van Os from 1854-1857 and in 1858 with Wouterus Verschuur, famous for his paintings of horses. The summer of 1858 was spent with the painter Paul Gabriël in Oosterbeek, and proved to be the first of many visits. In Oosterbeek, called the Dutch Barbizon, he received further instruction from Johannes Bilders, who instilled in Mauve a deep appreciation of nature as he began to paint outdoors. Here was where he also formed a lasting bond with the artist Willem Maris, influenced by his brushwork, coloration, and most importantly his love of cows.2 Beginning in 1865, Mauve moved constantly from Amsterdam, to Haarlem, The Hague, Scheveningen, Oosterbeek, Renkum, Wezep, Drenthe, Alkmaar, and Dordrecht, until 1871 when he took a studio in The Hague. In 1874 he married Ariette Sophia Jeannette Carbentus, a cousin of Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh spent three weeks in Mauve’s studio at the start of his career, and although this did not work out, always held the utmost esteem for the painter. In 1876 Mauve founded the Hollandsche Teeken-Maatschappij (Dutch Drawing Society) with Willem Maris and Hendrik Mesdag. The same year the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam purchased Mauve’s Cows in the Shade, marking his first sale to a Dutch museum.3 Continued

Mrs. Arthur Bell, “Anton Mauve” in Representative Painters of the XIXth Century, Sampson Low, Marston & Company, London, 1899, p.

189.

2 Biographical information taken from Dr. Jos de Gruyter, “Anton Mauve” in De Haagse School, volume 2, Lemniscaat, Rotterdam, 19681969, p. 71; Ronald de Leeuw, “Anton Mauve” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, & traveling, 1983, p. 233; and Wiepke Loos, “Anton Mauve” in Breitner and his age, Paintings from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam 1880-1900, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1995, p. 64.

3 Ibid.

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By the mid-1880s The Hague’s semi-rural environment of meadows, polders, waterways, dunes, and woods had begun to give way to an increasing urbanization.4 This forced Mauve to seek new grounds and ultimately, by 1885, to settle in Laren. Here his subject matter expanded to include more depictions of laboring peasants. This had always been an interest, initially sparked by his French contemporaries of the Barbizon School, notably Jules Bastien-Lepage and Jean François Millet. Such subjects were now enhanced by his surroundings.5 These works became so popular, particularly in the United States, that American artists flocked to Laren to paint “Mauves.”

An international art colony took root and the area became a tourist destination, which initiated the railway coming to Laren.6 Sadly, in 1888, at the age of fifty, Mauve suffered a fatal heart attack. Although his fame was international and his art highly prized, his early demise served to further enhance the value put upon his works. An astonishing example occurred at the auction of the renowned modern Dutch art collection of Joseph Jefferson in New York where Mauve’s The Return of the Flock was purchased by American dealers Scott & Fowles for $42,250 on April 27, 1906!7 His remarkable influence and sustained legacy are borne out by the fact that his works can be found in numerous museums throughout the world.

In what must be an early work, dating from Mauve’s time in Oosterbeek, three cows are seen resting along a fence. They are the central focus of the composition and a breed typical of the region.8 As this panel so clearly demonstrates, Mauve had discovered his muse. As marvelously stated by the artist’s first biographer, A.C. Loffelt, “How beautiful is the glitter of the checkered light on the emerald grass – how splendid the sun’s reflections upon the sleek hides of his black-and-white cow. The robe of an empress could not be more resplendent than the hides of Dutch cattle in the sunlight.”9 In a composition equally split between sky and land these cows are illuminated by intense sunlight yet dwell under clouds that have begun to darken. The small scrub of trees to their left is an element often included in these early compositions. In the background a sailboat floats on calm waters with a shoreline discernable in the distance. Vigorous brush strokes define this sympathetic rendering of cattle, earth, water, and air, a metaphor for the essence of Holland. Mauve’s love for his homeland was the overriding consistent and unifying factor in all of his works; perhaps best summarized by Josef Israëls at his graveside.

“And where shall we find another Mauve? The void he has left behind will probably never be filled.

There is no one to step into his place. I have lost a friend, but the country has lost an artist.”10

Ronald de Leeuw, “Introduction” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, op.cit., p. 14.

Dr. Jos de Gruyter, op.cit., p. 72; and Wiepke Loos, op.cit., p. 66.

6 Frank Rutter, “A Consideration of the Work of Anton Mauve” in The International Studio, volume 33, John Lane Company, November 1907, p. 10; and Nina Lübbren, Rural Artists’ Colonies in Europe 1870-1910, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2001, pp. 170171.

7 Catalogue of the Valuable Paintings Collected by the Late Joseph Jefferson, American Art Galleries, New York, April 27, 1906, lot 67; and “Art an Investment, An Echo from the Joseph Jefferson Sale” in Academy Notes, Buffalo, New York, May 1906, p. 201.

8 Ronald de Leeuw, “Anton Mauve,” op.cit., p. 234.

9 A.C. Loffelt, “Anton Mauve” in The Art Journal, volume 56, J.S. Virtue & Co, Limited, London, 1894, p. 105.

10 A.C. Loffelt, “Anton Mauve” in Dutch Painters of the Nineteenth Century, Sampson Low, Marston & Company Limited, London, 1900, p. 31.

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9.

ANTON MAUVE (Zaandam 1838 – Arnhem 1888) A Wood Gatherer in the Forest signed A. Mauve in the lower left brown ink and wash on buff paper 97⁄8 x 16½ inches (250 x 418 mm.) provenance

C. Straka, until 1966, when gifted to Benjamin Sonnenberg, New York The Benjamin Sonnenberg Collection, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, June 7, 1979, lot 641, where acquired by Private Collection, New York, until 2015 A solitary figure with an enormous bundle of wood strapped to his back trudges through a path in the forest.

He is preceded by a trail of frozen footsteps. Wearing a cap and heavy coat, the weather is obviously frigid, underscored by the composition’s restrictive coloration. Dwarfed by the monumentality of the gnarled trees that surround him, they serve as a metaphor for the hardships endured to survive. Beginning with medieval illuminated Books of Hours, wood gatherers have been emblematic for winter in Netherlandish painting.

Woodcutters, carts hauling lumber, and timber sales were an important theme in Mauve’s work, with a number of watercolors depicting these subjects regarded among his finest.1 This is a subject that would have strongly appealed to Benjamin Sonnenberg (1901-1978). In 1910, Sonnenberg arrived in New York, the son of poor Russian immigrants. His father had a clothing stand on the Lower East Side, while his mother washed the floors of a settlement house in order to make ends meet.2 Through an astonishing combination of energy, timing, and insightfulness, Sonnenberg was able to parlay these talents into a career best summarized as “the era’s premiere publicist” and “an invaluable consultant to the elite of American business”.3 He also became one of the period’s most important collectors of art, sculpture, and brass, which he housed in a 37-room mansion on Gramercy Park.4 In the 1979 estate sale catalog compiled by Sotheby Parke Bernet, the Mauve drawing is recorded as a 1966 gift from C. Straka. Apparently such a gift was not unusual for Sonnenberg, as a number of clients became very close friends, who in lieu of fees sent valuable works of art. In this instance the initial C. is probably a mistake as Jerome Straka, president and chief executive officer of Chesebrough-Pond’s is listed among Sonnenberg’s most famous clients.5 At the time, the Sonnenberg sale was the largest single owner collection of art and antiques that Sotheby’s had ever sold. The august Alistair Cooke, another dear friend of the departed, wrote the introduction to the catalog, titling it “The House of Sonnenberg”. Held over a period of four days, with about 30,000 attendees, the sale totaled almost $5,000,000.6 It was also the first American auction that garnered national media coverage.7 One can’t help but imagine that Sonnenberg would have been pleased.

Ronald de Leeuw, “Anton Mauve, Wood Gatherers on the Heath” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, exhibition catalog, Royal Academy of Arts, London, & traveling, 1983, no. 95, pp. 239-240.

2 Isadore Barmash, “Always Live Better than your Clients, The Fabulous Life and Times of Benjamin Sonnenberg, America’s Greatest Publicist, Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, 1983, p. 19; and Dan Carlinsky, “Famed Publicist” in The New York Times, November 14, 1983.

3 Isadore Barmash, op. cit., p. 4.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid, pp. 50, 167, 192. Chesebrough-Ponds most importantly produced Vaseline Petroleum Jelly.

6 Ibid, p. 188.

7 Robert White, “Managing Indian Assets” in Princeton Alumni Weekly, volume 87, September 17, 1986, p. 24.

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10.

JACOB HENRICUS MARIS (The Hague 1837 – Karlsbad 1899) A River Landscape with Farm Houses signed J. Maris in the lower left oil on canvas 23 x 29 inches (58.4 x 73.7 cm.) provenance

Hon. Senator George A. Cox, Toronto, by 1902 until 1914, and thus by inheritance to Mr. & Mrs. Herbert Coplin Cox, Oakville, Ontario, until 1926 when donated to The Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, Canada (name changed in 1966) to Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada, until deaccessioned in 2015 “Property of the Art Gallery of Ontario,” Christie’s, New York, June 23, 2015, lot 159 exhibited

(presumably) Toronto, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Exhibition of Dutch and Scotch Pictures, March 10-22, 1902, no. 25 (from the collection of the Hon. G.A. Cox) Toronto, The Art Museum of Toronto, The Second Exhibition, November 24 - December 16, 1909, no. 142 (from the collection of the Hon. Senator Cox) Toronto, The Art Gallery of Toronto, The Inaugural Exhibition, January 29 - February 28, 1926, no. 13 (Cox Collection) Regina, Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery, Piet Mondrian and The Hague School of Landscape Painting, October 10 - November 10, 1969, no. 18, also shown at Edmonton, Edmonton Art Gallery, December 3-28, 1969 Montréal, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Piet Mondrian et l’Ecole de La Haye, February 13 – March 15, 1970, no. 18 Owen Sound, Ontario, Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery and Museum of Fine Arts, The Holland Liberation Remembrance Exhibition, May 6-29, 1970 Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, The Hague School, Collecting in Canada at the Turn of the Century, May 7-June 26, 1983, no. 20, also shown at St. Catharines, Ontario, Rodman Hall Arts Centre, Brock University, September 16 - October 9, 1983; Sudbury, Ontario, Laurentian University Museum & Arts Centre, October 26 – November 20, 1983; Peterborough, Art Gallery of Peterborough, March 23 - April 15, 1984; Kingston, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, April 27 – May 27, 1984; and Halifax, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, June 14 – July 15, 1984 literature

(presumably) Catalogue of Special Exhibition of Dutch and Scotch Pictures, Women’s Art Association of Canada, Toronto, 1902, no. 25, unpaginated G. A. Reid, The Second Exhibition; Catalogue of a Loan Collection of paintings of the English, old Dutch, modern Dutch, French and other European Schools, The Art Museum of Toronto, Toronto, 1909, p. 120, no. 142 Catalogue of Inaugural Exhibition, The Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto, 1926, no. 13, p. 17 Nancy E. Dillow, Piet Mondrian and the Hague School of Landscape Painting, Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, 1969, no. 18, pp. 11, 23, illustrated Nancy E. Dillow, Piet Mondrian et l’Ecole de la Haye, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Montréal, 1970, no.

18, unpaginated W. J. Withrow, “Preface” in The Hague School, Collecting in Canada at the Turn of the Century, exhibition catalog, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1983, p. 7 Marta H. Hurdalek, The Hague School, Collecting in Canada at the Turn of the Century, exhibition catalog, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 1983, no. 20, pp. 10, 19, 39, illustrated Continued

G. Hermine Marius in her 1909 book, Dutch Painting in the Nineteenth Century, declared, “If we mention not only Vermeer, but also Rembrandt and Jacob Maris in one breath, we must remember that they who shout, ‘Rembrandt! Rembrandt!’ the loudest, without being impressed by Jacob Maris’ greatness would certainly have belonged to those who, in Rembrandt’s own day, most violently reviled him, or, for lack of understanding, denied him.”1 At this point Jacob Maris had long been regarded as “the greatest Dutch painter of his time”.2 Mattheus Maris and Hendrika Bloemert had three sons, Jacob, Matthijs, and Willem, all of whom became artists.

Jacob was the eldest who began his studies with Johannes Stroebel at the age of twelve. A year later he took drawing lessons at the Hague Academy with Jacobus van den Berg, He next apprenticed in the studio of Huib van Hove, who specialized in genre and interior scenes. In 1854 Maris followed Hove to Antwerp, which also was the first year he exhibited at the Tentoonstelling van Levende Meesters (Exhibition of Living Masters). At the Academy, he attended evening classes taught by Nicaise de Keyser. In 1855 his brother Matthijs joined him and shared a studio. By 1857 he had returned to The Hague where he would remain until 1865, when he moved to Paris. There he worked for a few months in the studio of Antoine-Auguste-Ernest Hébert. In 1867 Maris married Catharina Hendrika Horn. In 1871, following the Franco-Prussian War, Maris permanently settled in The Hague.3 Until 1870 the majority of Maris’ output had been devoted to genre scenes. Exposed to the Barbizon School, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, and Jules Jacques Veyrassat while in France, Maris began to focus more on landscapes. From 1872 onwards these works were viewed as “giving a new direction to Dutch painting by the strength of his construction, emphatic, simplified color, dramatic lighting, and above all, his broad, sure handling of paint”.4 By concentrating on the Dutch countryside with views of mills, rivers, beaches, moonlit nights, and cityscapes, his works achieved great popularity and Maris came to be regarded as one of the leaders of the Hague School.5 A River Landscape with Farm Houses is a perfect example of the reason he scaled such heights.

Marta H. Hurdalek has dated our painting to the late 1870s and sees in its low horizon, thinly drawn branches of willow trees, and contours of the farm buildings, a reflection of the French Barbizon painter Charles - François Daubigny.6 Although the comment is valid, Daubigny can only be viewed as a starting point for Maris’ ingenious creativity as what he paints is not a topographical rendering but an atmospheric impression. A river landscape is dominated by the silvery mists of a clouded sky. Also gray in tonality, the water diagonally cuts the composition in half with lush green banks filled with thatched houses and barren trees. Two figures work on a moored boat while birds soar overhead. The paint has been vigorously thrust onto the canvas in jabs of greens, browns, and grays. A strong color accent is provided by the blue jacket of the bent figure in the boat, serving to focus the viewer’s eye to the center of the composition, aided by bands of pure white paint that leapfrog down the middle.

The dense, cool colors further converge to convey the sense of overall dampness. Painted in the first decade of Maris discovering his true source of inspiration, the impact of A River Landscape with Farm Houses remains as fresh and modern as when it was executed.

G. Hermine Marius, Dutch Painting in the Nineteenth Century, Alexander Moring Limited, London, 1908, p. 105.

Dr. Jos de Gruyter, “Jacob Maris” in De Haagse School, volume II, Lemniscaat, Rotterdam, 1968, p. 29.

3 Biographical information taken from Ronald de Leeuw, “Jacob Maris” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, exhibition catalog, Royal Academy of Arts, London, & traveling, 1983, p. 201; and Wiepke Loos, “Jacob Maris” in Breitner and his age, Paintings from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1995, p. 58.

4 Dr. Jos de Gruyter, op. cit., p. 30.

5 Ibid; and Marta H. Hurdalek, op. cit., p. 37.

6 Marta H. Hurdalek, op. cit., p. 10.

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The first recorded owner of the work was the Hon. Senator George A. Cox (1840-1914), known as “the industrial genius of Ontario”. He was the president of Midland Railway and the insurance company Canada Life.

In 1896 Lord Aberdeen appointed him to the Senate.7 Cox belonged to a new group of wealthy entrepreneurs that emerged in Canada by the late 1870s due to a rapidly changing economy and increased exports, aided by the development of the transcontinental railways. Among this group, the collecting of Hague School pictures signaled one’s arrival into the cultural elite. So revered was the painter in Canada that, upon Maris’ death in 1899, the Art Association of Montreal felt compelled to organize a Special Loan Exhibition dedicated to the three Maris brothers the following year. The show featured thirty-five paintings by Jacob, four by Matthijs, and nine

by Willem. In 1902 under the aegis of Lady Aberdeen, an Exhibition of Dutch and Scotch Painters took place in Toronto; it included sixty-three modern Dutch paintings as well as, presumably, Cox’s loan of the Maris (the catalog stated only the artist’s name and label of Landscape, minus medium and dimensions). In 1909 Cox lent the Maris to The Second Exhibition of The Art Museum of Toronto. Upon his death in 1914 the Maris passed to his son Herbert Coplin Cox. In 1926 Herbert and his wife donated the Maris along with twenty-one other paintings from his father’s collection to The Art Gallery of Toronto.8 These paintings became known as the Cox Collection and were hung as a group in the newly built east rotunda, as well as being featured in the museum’s 1926 show The Inaugural Exhibition.9 From 1969 to 1970 Maris’ landscape was part of the impressive exhibition Piet Mondrian and The Hague School which included loans from the Rijksmuseum, Stedelijk, Kröller-Muller, Gemeentemuseum, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art among others, that traveled from Regina, to Edmonton and finally Montreal.

In May, 1970, it was part of a special show at Owen Sound, Ontario, The Holland Liberation Remembrance Exhibition. This was followed in 1983-1984 by The Hague School, Collecting in Canada at the Turn of the Century exhibition, mounted at six consecutive institutions, which showcased the wealth of Hague School works in private Canadian collections and museums. In the catalog Marta H. Hurdalek praised this painting by simply describing it as “a most typical Hague School landscape”.10 In 2015 the Art Gallery of Ontario (formerly The Art Gallery of Toronto until the name was changed in 1966) deaccessioned the Maris to fund new purchases. By this point almost its entire record of provenance, exhibitions, and publications had been lost. Such an iconic work of the Hague School as Maris’ A River Landscape with Farm Houses deserved resurrection. After reconstructing its history, we are pleased to return this work to the market after an absence of over one hundred years.

“Death of Senator G.A. Cox of Canada” in The Insurance Field (Life Edition), volume 29, January 23, 1914, p. 5.

Marta H. Hurdalek, op. cit., pp. 13, 15, 19.

9 Catalogue of Inaugural Exhibition, op. cit., p 15.

10 Marta H. Hurdalek, op. cit., p. 10.

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11.

NICOLAAS VAN DER WAAY (Amsterdam 1855 – Amsterdam 1936) An Amsterdam Orphan Girl Sewing signed N.V.D. Waay. in the lower right watercolor laid down on cardboard 35 x 23¾ inches (890 x 602 mm.) provenance

Private Collection, New York, until 2015 exhibited

Berlin, Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung, May 11-September 27, 1914, no. 466 (as Nähendes Waisenmädchen) Nicolaas van der Waay received his initial training from the portrait painter Louis Koopman, whose daughter he would later marry. At the age of sixteen he enrolled at the National Academy and was a student of August Allebé, who stressed the importance of studying the old masters. Upon graduation in 1876 he shared a studio with Jan Wijsmuller. In 1883 he was awarded a government grant that allowed him to go to Italy and copy the Italian masters. When Van der Waay returned to Amsterdam, he joined the staff of the National Academy where he was appointed a full professor in 1891. He remained at the Academy until 1927 and had numerous famous students, including, Lizzy Ansingh, Agnieta Cornelia Gijswijt, Willem Maris, Paul Rink, Jan Sluijters, Anton Smeerdijk, Jan Zoetelief Tromp, and Wilm Wouters. In 1898 he was given the prestigious commission of painting the inauguration of Queen Wilhemina, now in Het Loo Palace, Apeldoorn. His subject matter ranged among portraiture, allegory, historical scenes, nudes, genre, cityscapes and still lifes, executed in a style that began as highly realistic but around the turn of the century, under the influence of Isaac Israels, transitioned into a synthesis of Realism and Impressionism. He was a member of Arti et Amicitiae and Vereeniging Sint Lukas.

He was a founding member of the art association M.(ichel) A.(ngelo) B.(uonarotti) that was devoted to the enjoyment of art by professionals and amateurs alike.1 A beautiful young girl dressed as an orphan of the Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage is serenely seated in a sunlit interior. While engaged in embroidering linen, her expression is one of contemplation which is reflected in the mirror on the wall. By her side on top of a plain wooden table are scissors, white thread, a cup and saucer as well as an open book. On the wall are watercolors over a wainscoting of blue and white tiles. The timeless quality of the work is immediately evocative of the Dutch masters of the Golden Age. Carole Denninger, the expert on the painter, dates the execution of An Amsterdam Orphan Girl Sewing to circa 1890. The sitter in this work was particularly lovely and posed for the painter numerous times.2 She is also the model for his painting in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, called Amsterdam Orphan Girl (inv.no.A3144). In our composition Van der Waay depicted her seated in a corner of his studio that he had set up for these works.3 Another version, executed in chalk, of almost the same size and subject (see Fig. 11a), is in the Amsterdam Museum (inv.no.TB6170).

Fittingly the museum has fifty-five works by Van der Waay, nineteen of which are orphan subjects, as they occupy the former site of the Burgerweeshuis.

Continued

Biographical information taken from Pieter A. Scheen, “Nicolaas van der Waay” in Lexikon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 17501880, Uitgeverij Pieter A. Scheen BV,’s-Gravenhage, 1981, p. 257; Wiepke Loos, “Nicolaas van der Waay” in Breitner and His Age, Paintings from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam 1880-1900, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1995, p. 78; Drs. W.L. Baars, Nicolaas van der Waay, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 1999, unpaginated; “Nicolaas Van der Waay” on rkd.nl website, and written communication from Carole Denninger, dated October 29, 2015.

2 Written communication with Norbert Middelkoop of the Amsterdam Museum, Amsterdam dated, September 22, 2015.

3 Carole Denninger, op. cit..

1

The Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage, known as the Burgerweeshuis, was established in 1520 and in 1581 moved to a building located between the Kalverstraat, the Begijnhof, and the Keizergracht. The Burgerweeshuis was regarded with great civic pride. Only children whose parents had been middle-class were allowed admittance into the orphanage. Should tragedy strike, the institution was felt to be a reward for the offspring of those who had maintained the social contract of good citizenship in Amsterdam. The poor were sent to the Aalmoezeniersweeshuis.4 Both boys and girls of the Burgerweeshuis were dressed in vertically divided red and black uniforms that reflected the colors of the flag of Amsterdam.5 Their overall care was on par if not above the average middle-class child. They received regular medical attention, were well fed, and had adequate sleeping quarters.6 Most importantly, the Burgerweeshuis was concerned with their future, from the age of ten training began in a variety of skills. Until the age of sixteen, girls were put in the orphanage workshop and given sewing or knitting duties. All of the clothing and linens needed in the institution came from the workshop. From sixteen until eighteen, girls left the workshop to be employed in a section of the orphanage where they cleaned, prepared meals, or cared for young or sick children. What they did not do were any tasks in the boys’ quarters, as the sexes were kept strictly segregated. Hired maids cleaned the male dorms. At eighteen the girls returned to the workshop to teach the new trainees and refine their skills. Upon graduation at twenty, their highly disciplined training made them sought-after workers. The same initial practices and governing rules of the institution held throughout the nineteenth century.7 Van der Waay’s scenes depicting the girls of the Burgerweeshuis proved wildly popular. Executed in a variety of mediums, they are additionally viewed in the kitchen, classroom, or courtyard of the Amsterdam Municipal Orphanage.8 When Drs. Baars mounted his 1999 Nicolaas van der Waay exhibition, he wrote of being particularly struck by the artist’s “attention to form, color and composition” in his series of orphan girls, and how they compelled one to think of the American and English Realist movement, in particular the works of James Abbott McNeill Whistler.9 The girls of the orphanage were also painted and sketched over a five-year period by the German artist Max Liebermann, who viewed the Burgerweeshuis as the embodiment of social reform.10 Van der Waay, a lifelong Amsterdammer, must have shared the sentiment as well as feeling a deep-seated pride in its sustained success. The orphanage was considered a showcase. Travel guides, like the Baedeker, advised a visit to the girls of the Burgerweeshuis, open to the public on Sundays and holidays.11 One of Van der Waay’s most famous works is Orphanage Girls Going to Church in the Amsterdam Museum (inv.no.SA3635). The exquisiteness of Van der Waay’s execution underlines the profoundness of the series’ inherent meaning.

Having been passed through generations of a New York family, and been exhibited only once in Berlin over one hundred years ago, the freshness of Van der Waay’s An Amsterdam Orphan Girl Sewing marks the reemergence of a jewel.

We are very grateful to Norbert Middelkoop of the Amsterdam Museum, and Carole Denninger for their assistance in the writing of this entry.

Anne E.C. McCants, Civic Charity in the Golden Age, University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago, 1997, pp. 25, 28, 34.

Derek Phillips, Well-Being in Amsterdam’s Golden Age, Pallas Publication, Amsterdam, 2008, p 176.

6 Hanna van Solinge, Evelien Walhout, and Frans van Poppel, “Determinants of Institutionalization of Orphans in the NineteenthCentury Dutch Town” in Continuity and Change, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 161-162.

7 Anne E. C. McCants, op. cit., pp. 25, 84; and Hanna van Solinge, op. cit., p. 162.

8 Wiepke Loos, op. cit., p. 78.

9 Drs. W.L. Baars, op. cit., unpaginated.

10 Dr. Marion Deshmukh, Max Liebermann: Modern Art and Modern Germany, Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington, VT., 2015, pp 71, 73-74.

11 Ibid, p. 71.

4 5

Fig. 11a Nicolaas van der Waay, Zittend weesmeisje met naaiwerk (Sitting orphan girl with sewing), chalk on paper, 341â „5 x 227â „10 inches (86.9 x 57.6 cm.), Collection of The Amsterdam Museum, Courtesy of the Amsterdam Museum, bruikleen van Stichting Spirit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

12.

JACOB SIMON HENDRIK KEVER (Amsterdam 1854 – Laren 1922) Brotherly Love signed in the lower right Kever watercolor on paper 171⁄8 x 193⁄16 inches (437 x 492 mm.) provenance

Dr. Katherine Kromm Merritt, Stamford, Connecticut, until circa 1990, from whom acquired by Private Collection, Vinalhaven, Maine, until 2015 In the warm morning glow of a country kitchen, a young boy entertains his little sister seated in a high chair. In return her adoring glance speaks volumes. The dramatic angling of the baby’s high chair, whose design harks back to the seventeenth century, animates the scene. Through an economy of means and a limited palette of largely brown and orange, Jacob Simon Hendrik Kever captures the richness of the moment and its idyllic rusticity.

Josef Israels was the first to encourage Kever to study painting. He began his training at the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, in 1869, studying with Petrus Franciscus Greive until 1872.

From 1874-1875 he attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, also in Amsterdam. From 18781879 under the tutelage of Charles Verlat he was enrolled in the Koninklijke Acaemie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. His subjects included portraits, cityscapes, landscapes, flowers, genre and interior scenes in watercolors, oils, and etchings. Throughout his career he worked in Blaricum, Nunspeet, the province of North Brabant and Eemnes. Although not technically considered a member of the Laren School he also lived there from 18771879 and again in 1905-1922. He further maintained an apartment in Amsterdam near the Oosterpark where he resided during the winter months. The area must have constituted somewhat of an artist’s community as his neighbors were Geo Poggenbeek, Nicolaas Bastert and later Willem Witsen, Isaac Israels, and George Hendrik Breitner. Painting sojourns were made to the forest of Fontainebleau and the Harz Mountains. He was a member of Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam. Until at least 1910 he exhibited at shows in Arnhem, Amsterdam, The Hague, Munich, Paris, Rotterdam, St. Louis, and Venice, winning several gold and silver medals. Kever’s paintings formed part of the permanent collections of the museums of Albany, Amsterdam, Brooklyn, Brussels, Dordrecht, Haarlem, The Hague, Heino, Kampen, Laren, Middelburg, and Toledo, Ohio.1 It was scenes such as this depicting Dutch cottage interiors filled with sunlight that brought Kever lasting fame.

The young boy’s attire confirms the setting as the Gooi region where Laren is located.2 Although inspired by Israels, who is credited for “discovering” Laren, it would be Albert Neuhuys’ work that ultimately had the strongest impact on Kever and who is regarded as “the true founder of the Laren School”.3 By the end of the Continued

Biographical information taken from Dr. Ulrich Thieme & Dr. Felix Becker, “Jacobus Simon Hendrik Kever” in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, Veb E.A. Seeman Verlag, Leipzig, volume XX, 1940, p. 277; “Jacob Simon Hendrik Kever” in The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976, p. 88; Pieter A. Scheen, “Jacob Simon Hendrik Kever” in Lexikon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1880, Uitgeverij Pieter A. Scheen BV,’s-Gravenhage, 1981, p. 266; and “Jacob Simon Hendrik Kever” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.

2 Anja Frenkel, “Jacob Simon Hendrik Kever” in 25 Jaar Kunsthandel R Polak, exhibition catalog, Panorama Mesdag, The Hague, May 18June 17, 2001, p. 164.

3 John Sillevis, “The Years of Fame” in The Hague School, Dutch Masters of the 19th Century, exhibition catalog, Royal Academy of Arts, London, & traveling, 1983, p. 95; John Sillevis, “Albert Neuhuys” in The Hague School, op. cit., p. 263; and Geraldine Norman ed; Dutch Painters of the 19th Century, Marius, Antique Collectors Club, Woodbridge, 1988, p. 199.

1

nineteenth century a large art colony had formed in the village. In 1903 an anonymous writer for the Toledo Daily Blade newspaper described Laren’s appeal, “Holland, like the rest of the world is gradually changing, and much of the old and picturesque is passing away. The old stone floors are being supplanted by wooden ones and the great fire places are falling into disuse through the introduction of crude and inartistic cast-iron stoves.

However Laren has been lightly touched by the hand of time, and while there have been some changes to conform with modern times, they are in the main but trivial and consequently it is an ideal spot for the artist”.4 The population consisted of weavers, laborers, and sheep farmers, living in dwellings whose secluded and serene atmosphere fascinated artists. Besides Neuhuys, Lammert van der Tonge, Willy Sluiter, Lion Schulman, and Jacob Dooijewaard were among other artists working in the area.

Neuhuys concentrated on cottage interiors that featured the traditional lifestyle of the village. Lacking Josef Israels’ penchant for drama, his scenes are ones of contentment. In what has been described as a “frankness of manner” his handling is looser and more atmospheric.5 Kever followed Neuhuys’ lead but employed a more vivid palette. The immediacy of the imagery of works such as Brotherly Love stems from the medium. At his best in watercolor, the reason for this was clarified in an exhibition catalog devoted to Kever by Gebroeders Binger of Amsterdam. “How many times he made, under the superior impression of some sublime subject, an excellent and successful study or sketch, being filled with a feverish desire to give back what he had seen as sensitive and as complete as possible – but how many times there followed for the artist so discouraging disappointment that gradually during the working up to a picture, the superior qualities of the original study were lost”.6 What further differentiated Kever from Neuhuys was a lack of sentimentality. Contemporary viewers felt “the children of his brush are real children, lovingly and yet realistically rendered”7 and this is exactly why Kever’s Brotherly Love resonates today. Basked in warm colors, devoid of pretense while stripped to its emotional core, it is a profound portrayal of innocence.

Annette Stott, Holland Mania, The Overlook Press, 1998, p. 52.

Elizabeth W. Champney, “Modern Dutch Painters” in The Century Magazine, volume LVI, The Century Co., New York, 1898, p. 404; and John Sillevis, “Albert Neuhuys” in The Hague School, op. cit., p. 264.

6 Tentoonstelling van Werken door J.S.H. Kever, exhibition catalog, Gebroeders Binger, Amsterdam, (not dated but published during the artist’s lifetime), unpaginated.

7 Elizabeth W. Champney, op. cit., p. 405.

4 5

13.

CHARLES HENRI MARIE VAN WIJK (The Hague 1875 – The Hague 1917) Oude Vrouw haar Linnen Verstellende (Old Woman Mending her Linen) signed, inscribed, and dated CH.V. Wyk SCULPT ‘9’ (?) on the base bronze, golden-brown patina height: 15¼ inches (39.4 cm.), width: 85⁄8 inches (22.5 cm.), depth: 121⁄16 inches (31.4 cm.) provenance

Private Collection, Illinois, until 2015 related literature

B.L. Voskuil, Jr., Tentoonstelling van bronzen door Charles van Wijk, Amsterdam, October 1901, no. 13, unpaginated Frank Buffa en Zonen, Tentoonstelling van beeldhouwwerken door Charles van Wijk, Amsterdam, 1910, no. 17 Maatschappij Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam, 1911, no. 251 Veiling Nalatenschap Charles van Wijk, Kunstzaal Kleykamp, The Hague, November 27, 1917, lot 23 Helena Stork, “Oudje (of ‘Verstelwerk’)” in Charles van Wijk, exhibition catalog, Katwijks Museum, Katwijk, July 3 - September 25, 1999, p. 67 Charles van Wijk’s (or Wyk) practical training began in the foundry of his father Henry B. van Wijk in The Hague. Van Wijk’s skills in sculpting were obvious from a young age and encouraged by his father. Drawing lessons began with his uncle Arie Stortenbeker, an amateur painter, and at the age of twelve he was enrolled at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague. The chief instructor was the Belgian sculptor Antoine ‘Eugene’ Lacomblé who taught Van Wijk the art of modeling. The painter Fridolin Becker, another professor at the academy during this period, was also influential. Throughout his formal studies he continued to work in his father’s shop. After completing his schooling, Van Wijk was granted an internship at the famous Parisian foundry F. Barbedienne, secured by a letter of recommendation from the Amsterdam philanthropist and art collector A. C. Wertheim. The Parisian foundry was the largest and most modern of the period and specialized in the casting and finishing of small sculptures in different metals and sizes, the perfect environment in which to hone his skills.

From 1896–1897 the artist worked in Brussels, where he came under the influence of the Flemish sculptors Charles van der Stappen, Jef Lambeaux, and most importantly, Constantin Meunier. In direct opposition to the period’s dominant classical sculptural tradition, Meunier embraced the plight of the common laborer as his subject matter. He literally put the heroic pride and pathos of the worker, engaged in the struggle for survival, on a pedestal. Divorced from the excesses associated with contemporary sculpture, these figures are muscle-bound yet generalized forms that bluntly engage the viewer. Van Wijk shared this interest in the portrayal of the mundane, subjects he had tentatively investigated prior to his contact with Meunier.1 Upon his return to The Hague, themes of the commonplace came to the forefront in his work. Executed in a naturalistic yet impressionistic manner, echoing the subject matter of the Hague School painters, with long periods spent in Katwijk, Van Wijk’s studies of the lives of its fisherfolk now dominated his output. He worked outside, dragging clay packed in wet rags in a wheelbarrow, to enable modeling from life while observing subjects engaged in their daily routine. Not possible in the studio, he further explored the effects of light, air, and weather on his work, which aided in his development of a strong sense of line and volume. He regarded natural light as the key to his impressionistic method. He used these clay models to cast in bronze, employing the “lost wax (cire perdue) method,” which permitted a freer handling but was lengthy and labor-intensive. Van Wijk did everything himself, including the chasing and patination, that resulted in a high level of perfection to the finish. Each Continued Biographical information taken from Helena Stork, op. cit., pp. 11–13; and Arend-Jan Sleijster, Willy Sluiter en de Kunstvereeniging ‘Katwijk’, 1908–1910, exhibition catalog, Stichting Katwijks Museum, Katwijk, October 11, 2008–January 10, 2009, pp. 131–132.

1

subject consisted of at most three casts, although in some cases he did variations. He did not number images and rarely dated his work. He preferred executing small pieces, never higher than about 55 centimeters. Although his chosen medium was bronze, it often proved too costly and time-consuming for every sculpture. Some subjects exist only in plaster, while others were just given a bronze coating. Striving to record his impressions through sculpting, he regarded such details as the mark of a fingerprint, as adding to the overall expression of the piece.

He also occasionally employed stone, marble or wood.2 Around 1905, Van Wijk married Anna Maris, the daughter of the Hague School painter Jacob Maris. They lived in The Hague with neighbors that included Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Willem Maris, Josef Israels, and Arthur Briet. Willy Sluiter was a close friend, with whom Van Wijk regularly traveled to Nunspeet, Elspeet, Scheveningen, and Volendam to work. Van Wijk’s sculpture had proved popular from the start of his career, receiving his first gold medal in September 1899, during the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. In the Universal Exposition of Paris, 1900, and the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, 1904, he was also awarded gold medals. In 1915, he won a silver medal at the Panama–Pacific Exposition, San Francisco,3 at which time an art critic wrote “the display of sculpture in the Netherlands section, while not otherwise important, is notable through the inclusion of three subjects by Charles van Wyk”.4 He was a member of both Arti et Amicitiae in Amsterdam, and Pulchri Studio, The Hague, the main locations in Holland where contemporary artists could exhibit and sell their work. He also had regular shows at most of the important Dutch dealers of the period, including Oldenzeel and Reckers, Rotterdam; Frank Buffa en Zoenen, Amsterdam; and J. J. Biesing, The Hague.5 After 1906 the majority of his work was devoted to commissioned portraits, and monuments. One of the most moving is the memorial sculpture, executed 1914–1915, for the grave of the painter Bernardus Johannes Blommers, which features a profile portrait of Blommers, a palette with brushes at its base, and a weeping lifesize figure of a young Scheveningen girl. The art publisher Harms Tiepen described it in terms of “monumental grandeur of poignant grief”.6 Works in public collections are in the museums of Amsterdam, Dordrecht, Enkhuizen, Haarlem, The Hague, Harderwijk, Katwijk, Laren, Rotterdam, and Schiedam.

The first known showing of this work or another cast of Oude Vrouw haar Linnen Verstellende, was in October 1901, at an exhibition devoted to the sculptor, mounted by the modern art dealer Bartholomeus Lambertus Voskuil in Amsterdam. As was Van Wijk’s practice, no more than three versions of this subject would have been cast. One was exhibited at Frank Buffa en Zonen, Amsterdam in 1910, and at the exhibition of the artists’ society Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam in 1911. In Van Wijk’s estate sale, held shortly after his death in The Hague, a cast of Oude Vrouw haar Linnen Verstellende, was also included.

The bronze depicts an old woman of Katwijk, seated on a wooden and thrush chair, with her feet firmly planted on a foot warmer. Her attention is fully absorbed by her mending. Van Wijk, who was known to have always worked from life, has sculpted a subject of ingenious simplicity. Yet its inherent monumentality stems from the sculptor’s obvious compassion for the sitter. Executed during the earlier part of his career, it derives from the period in which he was consumed with capturing the reality of the harshness of the villagers’ life in the coastal towns along the North Sea. In a number of other pieces, Van Wijk placed sitters on chairs, but they function solely as supports, (i.e. Anarchist, 1896, Moeder die Baby Voedt, 1897, and Oude Vrouw can Spinnewiel). In Oude Vrouw haar Linnen Verstellende, the chair is just as important as the sitter. The vigorous sculpting applied in forming the figure is superbly contrasted against the solidity of the chair. A multi-faceted union is created, which triggers a showering of light throughout. From varying angles, surprisingly different impressions are created, in a mix of humility and grandeur.

Helena Stork, op. cit., pp. 12, 15, 34.

Ibid, p. 36–37.

4 Christian Brinton, “Sculpture at the Panama–Pacific Exposition” in The International Studio, November 1915, volume LVIII, no. 225, p.

IX. 5 Arend-Jan Sleijster, op. cit., pp. 36–37.

6 Ibid, p. 36.

2 3

14.

ARTHUR CRAMER JAMES WASSE (Manchester 1854 – Rothenburg 1930) The Artist’s Home signed Arthur Wasse in the lower right, inscribed and dated on the reverse: To my very kind Friends Albert & Emilie Therkelsen as some slight return for many kindnesses received. Rothenburg. º|T. X’mas 1920. oil on canvas 301⁄5 x 37½ inches (76.7 x 95.2 cm.) provenance

Arthur Wasse, Christmas 1920 to Albert & Emilie Therkelsen who gifted it to Private Collection, Santa Barbara, California, and thus by descent until 2015 A riotous display of flowers and vines has almost engulfed the front door of Arthur Wasse’s home. A dreamland set in Rothenburg, the canvas is a profusion of torenias, nasturtiums, straw flowers, and ivy into which only a few portholes of sunlight shine. A solitary blackbird saunters across an emerald lawn with a scattering of leaves. The Artist’s Home is a masterwork of tactility and patterning. Achieved through the use of unmodulated color applied in rapid brushstrokes, the flowers pulsate across the canvas. The three-dimensionality of the abundant wreath that engulfs the home’s entrance is the result of the painter’s intense scrutiny of the atmospheric effects of light and shade playing and constantly crossing over his beloved garden. In stark contrast is the darkened interior of the old stone dwelling visible through the open door. In actuality so magical was the effect of the house and garden situated on the remains of the old city wall in Rothenburg, that when Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924), the author of The Secret Garden, encountered them while visiting the town and learning that it belonged to an artist insisted on viewing “the pictures of a man who had the sense to make a house of that place and live in it.”

She further described the dwelling as “a defense tower” and the visit as one of her happiest afternoons during a 1913 motoring trip through Europe.1 Descended from the artistic families of both his mother Anne Robinson and father John Angelo Wasse, the son’s formal training began at the Manchester School of Art for a period of ten months no later than 1875. The headmaster was William Jabez Muckley, renowned for his paintings of flowers.2 That same year Wasse won a bronze medal at the National Competition held in South Kensington in which art students from all over the country submitted works in the hopes of being awarded medals or book prizes. The exhibition was meant to set a standard of excellence for the entire country.3 By the end of 1875 Wasse was enrolled at the leading art school in Europe, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. There he studied with Karl Theodor von Piloty and Wilhem von Diez. A wonderful portrait by Beneš Knüpfer, depicting Wasse in the role of the dissolute student, captures this period succinctly and now hangs in the Manchester City Art Gallery (see Fig. 14a). Wasse spent the latter half of the 1870s until 1895 continually commuting between Germany and England. In 1882 he became a member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts.4 Continued

Ann Thwaite, Waiting for the Party, The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1849-1924, David R. Godine, Publisher, Boston, 1991, p. 231.

Biographical information taken from Ian Wasse, Arthur Cramer James Wasse, unpublished history of the Wasse family, unpaginated; Marjorie Gregson & A. Matthews, “Goodbye by Arthur Wasse” on Lytham St. Annes Art Collection, lythamstannesartcollection.org website; and Dr. Hellmuth Möhring, on info@diegutestube.de website.

3 “List of Students Rewarded at the National Competition” in Reports from Commissioners, Inspectors, and Others, volume XXVI, 1875, p.

398; and Walter Crane, “South Kensington and its Art Training and National Competition” in The Report of the Departmental Committee in South Kensington and its Art Training, Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1912, p. 36.

4 Ian Wasse, op. cit.; Marjorie Gregson & A. Matthews, op. cit.; and Dr. Hellmuth Möhring, op. cit..

1 2

From 1882-1910 he exhibited works at the Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Manchester City Art Gallery; Royal Academy; Royal Society of British Artists; and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours.5 Although known for his paintings of flowers, he created quite a stir at the 1887 Royal Academy Exhibition with Lancashire Pit Lasses at Work. Intended to express the deplorable working conditions of the Lancashire coal mines,6 important critics such as George Bernard Shaw expressed his admiration by stating “Mr. Arthur Wasse has chosen a capital subject”,7 while Arthur Joseph Munby (a diarist who spent thirty years documenting life in the English coalfields) described it as a “good and accurate” rendering.8 Having made previous visits as well as extended stays to Rothenburg, Wasse permanently settled there in 1895 and moved into the house located at Klingenbastei la depicted in this work.9 By this point, Rothenburg had become an international artists’ colony as well as a tourist destination, the attraction being the town’s medieval architecture and idyllic natural setting. The influx of visitors ultimately transformed Rothenburg into a national symbol for Germanic heritage and values, with Wasse as its most dedicated interpreter. For the rest of his life he would remain enthralled by the city’s atmosphere and architecture along with the resultant play of light and shadow which he often depicted surrounded by its vibrant vegetation.10 His body of work is regarded as the defining Romantic imagery of Rothenburg.11 Martha Faber, Wasse’s first biographer, wrote, “His most beautiful paintings were produced from his home in Rothenburg. Only in such isolation could Wasse’s artistic talent mature, develop and intensify”.12 His house now marks the starting point for what is Arthur Wasse Weg, a path just beyond the city walls with lovely views of the valley below. Its entrance is through a door in the wall close to the Klingen Outer Gate. A Dr. Ludwig Scheider from Frankfurt recorded a visit to the Wasse home in 1930. He noted upon entering that Rebecca Fanny Pittar, Wasse’s wife, remarked, “Those are his flowers. My husband planted them himself, he loves flowers... He loves nature, he knows it, gathers her in, receives what she gives him, and gives back what he receives”. Scheider further described the house as, “Half dark. Thick carpet. Cushions, paintings, arabesques. No noise from the outside...paintings, paintings, paintings”. Faber recorded that Wasse did all his own gardening as he did not want “strange hands to disturb his loved ones.” She additionally remarked that “Completely insignificant flowers also found their place in the garden, where they could fully develop and one was often astonished at the richness of bloom and scent... Whether the master was conscious of putting together this color symphony in flashing yellow, blue, red and smoothest pink or not... who can say? But in any case they opened their beings to him...otherwise he would not have been able to paint them in the way that we admire in his pictures.” The birds that dwelt in Wasse’s garden were another beloved component. He erected protected nest boxes for his flock and aided in their care.13 The question arises as to why such a superb technician as Wasse remains almost unknown beyond the confines of Rothenburg. Wasse’s constant movement between England and Germany from 1875-1895 must be partially to blame. Mike Wasse, a descendant, believes another contributing factor, following the painter’s settling in Rothenburg, was the aftermath of the Boer War in 1902 when no one was buying paintings. Later during World War I Wasse was declared an undesirable alien and largely confined to his house. Few tourists visited the town J. Johnson & A. Greutzner, eds., “Arthur Wasse” in The Dictionary of British Artists 1880-1940, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, 1988, p. 530; and Christopher Wood, “Arthur Wasse” in The Dictionary of Victorian Painters, Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, 1989, p. 499.

6 Joshua Hagen, Preservation, Tourism and Nationalism, The Jewel of the German Past, Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington, VT., 2006, p. 83.

7 Stanley Weintraub, ed., Bernard Shaw on the London Art Scene 1885-1950, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989, p. 166.

8 Angela V. John, By the Sweat of their Brow, Women Workers at Victorian coal mines, Routledge, Oxon, 2006, unpaginated.

9 Dr. Hellmuth Möhring, op. cit..

10 Joshua Hagen, op. cit., pp. 79, 83.

11 “The Romantic Road” in Frommer’s Europe, Wiley Publishing, Inc. 2004, p. 450.

12 Martha Faber, Arthur Wasse und sein Werk: ein Rothenberger Kunstlerleben, Rothenburg O. Tauber, Verein Alt-Rothenburg, 1936 (translation taken from Ian Wasse), unpaginated.

13 Ibid.

5

once the war ended, decimating what had been a major source of income.14 Also the abandonment of exhibiting works in major venues after 1910 all but assured the eclipse of the painter’s reputation. These circumstances were further compounded by the fact that Wasse, did not like to sell his works and sold no more than was absolutely necessary. He was described as “a reticent man who built a gentle but uncrossable wall of reserve between himself and his nearest acquaintances in Rothenburg”.15 Dorothy J. Smith, in her 1971 article “The Bavarian Exile of Arthur Wasse”, questioned if, “The Wasses’ secluded life meant for the artist a turning aside from the places where the action was”... “Were a certain retreat and escapism involved in his choice, or was Fig. 14a. Beneš Knüpfer (1848-1910), Portrait of Arthur Wasse, oil on canvas, 20 x 26 ¼ inches (50.8 x 66.7 cm.), it sacrifice? – the sacrifice to his own nature that a Collection of Manchester Art Gallery, person who dislikes city life, but could profit by its Courtesy of Manchester Art Gallery, UK, Bridgeman Images advantages, makes when he opts for rural peace of 16 mind”. Whatever the reason, the answer is that the end (or in this case the art) justifies the means. After Wasse’s death his widow donated fifty-eight of his most important paintings to the city of Rothenburg, they now hang in the Reichsstadtmuseum. In 2004 to mark the 150th anniversary of Wasse’s birth a retrospective of his work was mounted in Rothenburg at the museum. Other paintings are in the Manchester City Art Gallery and Harris Museum, Preston, Great Britain.

This is a deeply personal work painted for friends in which the painter’s heart is on display. Although the significance of Albert and Emilie Therkelsen to Wasse is unknown, the painting defines the importance of the relationship. The Therkelsens later gifted the work to a close friend who kept it for the rest of his life and then it descended within the family. Due to its cherished treatment the painting’s condition is pristine. Wasse’s reputation has been hidden in the shadows for decades; the mysterious power and beauty of The Artist’s Home is a just awakening.

We are grateful to Drew Adam, Robert Goeken, Mike Wasse, and Dr. Hellmuth Möhring, director of the Reichsstadtmuseum, Rothenburg, for their assistance in the writing of this entry.

Written communication from Mike Wasse, dated November 18, 2015.

Dorothy J. Smith, “The Bavarian Exile of Arthur Wasse” in Queen’s Quarterly, 1971, p. 97.

16 Ibid.

14 15

15.

WILHELMUS (WILM) HENDRIKUS MARIE WOUTERS (The Hague 1887 – Amsterdam 1957) De Zaligmaker in Church signed W. Wouters in the upper left oil on canvas 42 x 33¼ inches (108 x 85 cm.) provenance

Lieveland Collection, De Rijp, The Netherlands, until 2015 exhibited

Enkhuizen, Zuiderzeemuseum, Volendam Kunstenaarsdorp het Erfgoed van Hotel Spaander (Volendam Artists Village, The Heritage of Hotel Spaander) November 11, 2009 - May 2, 2010 Volendam, Volendams Museum, Wilm Wouters Schildert Volendam, March 15 – November 8, 2015 (This painting was used as the announcement poster for the exhibition.) literature

Brian Dudley Barrett & André Groeneveld, Volendam Kunstenaarsdorp het Erfgoed van Hotel Spaander (Volendam Artists Village, The Heritage of Hotel Spaander) Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen, 2009, p. 149, illustrated “Wilm Wouters Schildert Volendam” in de-Maarschalk, March 10, 2015, illustrated Outsiders idealized the people of Volendam who were viewed as pious, honest, healthy and happy. Their needs were felt to be meager and were seen as removed from such social ills as alcoholism. Their colorful costumes and tiny wooden houses crammed with objects appealed to the imagination of artists and collectors alike.1 Wilm Wouters who lived among them, captured their souls as opposed to only their reflections in his work. This painting depicts Geertje Karregat (1837-1924) known as de Zaligmaker (the Savior), holding a rosary, in a pew of the seventeenth century Protestant Church of Volendam.2 Behind her, an older man and two children are seated. Geertje was married to the fisherman Jan Pooijer Pantjes (1828-1898) with whom she had five children.

They lived in the Doolhof, on a narrow street in the oldest part in the center of Volendam, in a house so tiny that the Land Registry regarded it as too small to list. In their old age, they took any job they could find to keep financially afloat. After Geertje was widowed at the age of 61, she knitted sweaters, socks, and muffs on order.

Why she came to be known as de Zaligmaker stems from the job she took to pray and prepare the villagers for their funerals. Clothed in the traditional garb of the village, Geertje was photographed by tourists, and due to her striking appearance, became a popular model for artists (i.e. Piet van der Hem, Willy Sluiter, Albert Polydor Ternote, and Maximilian Vanka). Through these means she received national recognition and came to be perceived as emblematic of Volendam.3 John Sillevis stated regarding Wouters’ De Zaligmaker in Church, “had he been an American this work would hang in a place of honor in the National Gallery in Washington”.4 There are three known versions of the composition, two in the collection of the Hotel Spaander, and this one, which until last year was privately held.

They are identical in subject and size. The Spaander paintings employ a darker palette of pronounced blues and blacks, particularly in the costuming of Geertje; whereas in our work, browns and greys predominate, lending a Continued Brian Dudey Barrett & André Groeneveld, op cit., p. 248.

Piet Koning, Wilm Wouters, In opdracht van de Stitchting Artist Kom Binne, 2015, p. 59.

3 Biographical information taken from Dick Brinkkemper, Peter Kersloot, Kees Sier, Volendam schildersdorp, 1880-1940, Waanders Uitgevers, 2006, p. 170; Piet Koning, op.cit., pp. 56-58; and “Klaas Koster, Portrait of Geertje Karregat” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.

4 “Als Wilm Wouters een Amerikaan was geweest hing dit werk op een ereplaats in de National Gallery in Washington.”, See Piet Koning, op. cit., p. 59.

1 2

more ethereal quality to the scene. One of the Spaander versions was exhibited at Arti et Amicitiae in 1923 and executed in 1922. It is unknown which version was first painted.

Wouters was obviously drawn to Geertje due to the expressiveness of her entire being. As succinctly demonstrated by this work, what greater theme could an artist undertake than the symbolic struggle of survival in the face of adversity, while placing full faith in the presence of a higher power. Coupled with the unflinching modernity of its image, it is hardly surprising that the Volendams Museum chose this painting as the banner for their Wouters retrospective, as it is a masterpiece.

Before Wouters became an artist, he was a sailor and then a diamond cutter. He began his artistic training in 1908 with Albert Hahn. From 1909 to 1914, he was enrolled at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and was a student of Carl Lodewijk Dak, Antonius Johannes Derkinderen, and Nicolaas van der Waay; but it would be his 1918 move from Amsterdam to Volendam, that would prove transformative.5 In all likelihood, Wouters, like so many of his colleagues, arrived in Volendam in search of the “unspoiled” villages of the Netherlands. From the 1880s onwards, artists from all over the world had become enamored of all things Dutch, and arrived in droves to search for what they considered the “true” Holland. Volendam, eleven miles north of Amsterdam, in the 1880s was a remote fishing village accessible only by canalboat or carriage. Such isolation had left Volendam largely untouched by the modernization and industrialization prevalent in such Dutch cities as Rotterdam and Amsterdam or other foreign capitals, and it was exactly this feature that proved so attractive. Noting a lack of hotel accommodations, a local entrepreneur by the name of Leendart Spaander spotted an opportunity and opened his house to foreign artists.

By 1881 he had purchased a bar in Volendam and converted it into the Hotel Spaander (which is still in existence today).6 In 1895, cleverly and with much forethought, Spaander had two of his daughters don the traditional dress of Volendam, and accompany him to the opening of an exhibition for the Dutch artist Nico Jungman in London, which caused a sensation. Spaander followed this up by having postcards printed featuring Volendam and his hotel, and sent them to all foreign art academies. He also ran ads for the hotel with the Holland-America shipping line. At the hotel, he installed rooms featuring typical Volendam interiors, and then rented them to artists. For an extra fee he supplied models. Spaander had seven daughters who often posed for artists, and unsurprisingly three eventually married painters, including his youngest Conny who married Wouters in 1919. Spaander further extended his operation by buying the land behind his hotel and building studios for artists who wanted to prolong their stay in Volendam. As a result of such accommodations, an international artist colony formed. Spaander was able to amass a large art collection as unpaid accounts were occasionally settled in exchange for paintings.

Volendam, viewed as quaint, colorful and exotic, teemed with artists, and along with Spaander’s ever-growing collection, functioned as a draw for the hotel and attracted tourists from everywhere. Such millionaires as Andrew Carnegie, William Randolph Hearst, Anna Pavlova, Harold Lloyd, Clark Gable, and Walt Disney, as well as members of the Dutch and German royal families, visited.7 Conny and Wouters, along with her sisters Pauline and Trinette, and their husbands, the German painter Georg Hering and French artist Augustine Haricotte respectively, held a central place within the artists’ colony of Volendam. They acted as role models for the community, and were particularly helpful in assisting new arrivals, and organizing ateliers. Conny and Wouters’ first son, also named Wilm, was born in 1919. Leendart Spaander lived to be 99 years old (1855-1955), and through the years his collection grew substantially, with Wouters contributing more than sixty works. Because of the nature of its formation, the Spaander Collection is viewed as a guideline to the artistic heritage of Volendam, the importance of which was documented in Volendam Artists Village, The Heritage of Hotel Spaander, in which this painting was illustrated, published by the Zuiderzeemuseum in 2009.8 Dirk Brinkkemper, Peter Kersloot, Kees Sier, op. cit., p. 126.

Ivo Blom, “Of Artists and Tourists: ‘Locating’ Holland in Two Early German Films” in A Second Life: German Cinema’s First Decades, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 1996, pp. 247-248, 254; and Annette Stott, Holland Mania, The Overlook Press, Woodstock, New York, 1998, pp. 44-45.

7 Ivo Blom, op. cit., pp. 247, 254.

8 Brian Dudley Barrett & André Groeneveld, op. cit., pp. 132, 144, 150, 154.

5 6

Wouters lived in Volendam until 1925, and then moved to Amsterdam. Besides being an excellent draftsman and painter, he worked in pastels and watercolor, and executed etchings, lithographs and woodcuts. His subject matter included landscapes, cityscapes, florals, and genre, but foremost portraiture. He was a member of Arti et Amicitae, the St. Luke Society, and Mija Rembrandt. Besides works in the Spaander Collection and the Zuiderzeemuseum, there is a charcoal drawing, De Kaartlegger (Reading the Cards) in the Volendams Museum, and a still-life painting in the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.9

Biographical information taken from Hans Vollmer, “Wilm (Wilhelmus) Wouters in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts, volume V-Z, Veb. E.A. Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, 1953, p. 170; Pieter A. Scheen, “Wilhelmus Hendrikus Marie (Wilm) Wouters” in Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750–1950, volume 2, ‘s-Gravenhage, 1969-1970, pp. 626-627; and Dirk Brinkkemper, Peter Kersloot, Kees Sier, op. cit., p. 26.

9

16.

WILHELM GDANIETZ (Mainz 1893 – Düsseldorf 1969) A Volendam Fisherman Lighting his Pipe signed W. GDANIETZ in the lower left oil on canvas 315⁄8 x 2711⁄16 (81.7 x 70 cm.) provenance

Private Collection, Chicago Wilhelm Gdanietz was a painter of interiors and genre as well as a printmaker. He studied at the Art Academy of Düsseldorf with Claus Meyer, the history painter Karl-Franz-Eduard von Gebhardt, and Willy Spatz, from 1911 – 1918. He also apprenticed in the studio of Franz Kiederich.1 In 1927 Gdanietz stayed at the Hotel Spaander in Volendam and discovered the subject-matter to which he would devote his career.2 In, A Volendam Fisherman Lighting his Pipe, a typical cottage interior is depicted. The walls are white stucco, the floor is covered by a striped thrush mat, and the only piece of furniture is a simple wooden chair. The decorations consist of an earthenware jug, a mounted blue and white plate with a string of copper pot lids hung over the sitter’s head. The covering of walls with china as well as kitchen utensils was typical for the area.3 Wearing the traditional dress of the village that consisted of wooden shoes, wide black trousers, red tunic and a fur hat or karpoets with a heavy jacket slung over the back of his chair, a fisherman sits smoking a long clay pipe.4 Such scenes of fisherfolk in repose, secure in their own home along with a few prized possessions, came to characterize the majority of Gdanietz’s oeuvre. After returning to Germany in the 1930s, in order to maintain authenticity, the artist transformed his studio in Düsseldorf into an interior that replicated a Volendam cottage. He further outfitted it with objects, furniture, and costumes from the region as well as other parts of Holland.5 Unwavering in his passion, immune to contemporary art trends, Gdanietz continued to paint Volendammers for the rest of his life.6 Gdanietz’s Im Gelben Seidenkleid (The Yellow Silk Gown) is recorded as in the National Gallery of Berlin.7 Another painting by the artist of the same size and similar subject titled Oude Volendammer met Fuik (Old Volendammer with Fish-Trap) is in the permanent collection of the Hotel Spaander.8 Volendammer in Interieur, again closely related to A Volendam Fisherman Lighting his Pipe, that Gdanietz executed circa 1930 in a horizontal format, was purchased by the Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen in 2010.

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Biographical information taken from Hans Vollmer, “Wilhelm Gdanietz” in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts, volume E-I, Veb E.A. Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, 1953, pp. 212-213.

Brian Dudley Barrett, Volendam Artists Village: The Heritage of Hotel Spaander, uitgeverij d’jonge Hond, Zuiderzeemuseum, 2009, p. 160.

Holland-Broek, Monnikendam, Volendam, Marken – By Steam Yacht, 1913.

Brian Dudley Barrett, op. cit., p. 62.

“Wilhelm Gdanietz” in Volendam in Interiors, Zuiderzeemuseum, November, 2010.

Hans Kraan, Dromen van Holland, Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle, 2002, pp. 375 – 376.

Hans Vollmer, op. cit., p. 213.

For a reproduction see Brian Dudley Barrett, op. cit., p. 114.

17.

WILHELMUS (WILM) HENDRIKUS MARIE WOUTERS (The Hague 1887 – Amsterdam 1957) Mother and Child by Volendam Harbor signed Wilm Wouters in the lower right oil on canvas 26½ x 115⁄8 inches (68 x 30 cm.) provenance

By descent in the family of the artist until 2008, and from whom acquired by Lieveland Collection, De Rijp, The Netherlands, 2008-2015 exhibited

Enkhuizen, Zuiderzeemuseum, Volendam Kunstenaarsdorp het Erfgoed van Hotel Spaander (Volendam Artists Village, The Heritage of Hotel Spaander) November 22, 2009 - May 2, 2010 Domburg, Marie Tak von Poortvliet Museum, ‘Artist Kom Binne’, Volendam Kunstenaarsdorp in Domburg, June 9 - November 10, 2013 Volendam, Volendams Museum, Wilm Wouters Schildert Volendam, March 15 - November 8, 2015 Before an impressionistically rendered sea, sky, and ground, a mother of monumental stature, stands holding her infant at the edge of Volendam harbor, framed by two boats with magenta sails. The color is emblematic for Volendam as it was dubbed “The Magenta Village” by a number of visiting artists. This color was visible throughout Volendam, in the clothing of the villagers, on the sails of the fishing boats, and on the brick work, and paint of their houses.1 The woman is dressed in the traditional garb of the village. She wears a black jacket, enlivened by a square yoke or embroidered “kraplap,” over a black and white striped skirt, topped by a blue apron, with a lighter band across the waist. One is reminded of the sea’s dominance upon the lives of these villagers by the torrent of blue brush strokes that comprise her apron. Women typically wore short sleeves, as sun-burnt arms were considered particularly beautiful.2 She sports a black undercap, worn everyday as opposed to the more ornate high lace cap called the Volendam “Hul”. Black leather shoes are paired with grey stockings. Around her neck are three strands of red coral with a gold clasp worn in front. Coral was traditionally believed to ward off disease and evil spirits.3 The most pronounced feature of her costume is its silhouette, humorously explained by Henry van Dyke, Minister to the Netherlands from 1913 - 1917, in a 1918 speech given to The Holland Society at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. “You know the Dutch peasant women wear just as many petticoats as they can pay for and put on, anywhere from the number of eight or ten or even twelve, so that when they are fully dressed they look like a beer barrel on skids”.4 The child’s clothing resembles that of the mother, again customary in the village.

Mother and Child by Volendam Harbor directly relates to Wouters’ largest composition The Life Cycle of a Volendam Fisherman (De Levenscyclus van een Volendammer Visser), purchased in 2015, by the Volendams Museum5, as they reappear in similar poses as the wife and child of the fisherman. Resolute in the face of change, the village clung to its traditions, and both pieces can be viewed as a homage to the place in which the painter lived and worked.6 For Wouters, this mother and child was the essence of Volendam, embodying all that was worth saving and remembering.

Brian Dudley Barrett & André Groeneveld, Volendam Kunstenaarsdorp het Erfgoed van Hotel Spaander (Volendam Artists Village, The Heritage of Hotel Spaander) Zuiderzeemuseum, Enkhuizen, 2009, p. 12.

2 A.D.M. Jr., “A Traveler’s Notes of a Trip to the Land of Dykes”, in New Amsterdam Gazette, volume 3, no. 1, New York, August 31, 1883, p. 5; and Beatrix Jungman, Holland, Adam and Charles Black, London, 1904, p. 3.

3 Katlijne Van der Stighelen, “Peter Paul Rubens” in Pride and Joy, Children’s Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exhibition catalog, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, October 7 - December 31, 2000, p. 36.

4 “Address by Lieutenant – Commander Henry van Dyke, Chaplain, U.S.N.R.F.” in Year Book of The Holland Society of New York 1918, The Holland Society of New York, p. 97.

5 “Volendams Museum verheugd over aankoop grootse schilderij Wilm Wouters”, June 18, 2015, on groote-waterland.nl website. The painting originally measured 1.50 x 3.60 meters.

6 Piet Koning, Wilm Wouters, In oprdracht van de Stichting Artist Kom Binne, 2015, p. 94.

1

18.

CORNELIS VREEDENBURGH (Woerden 1880 – Laren 1946) Boerderij (The Farm) signed C. Vreedenburgh in the lower right oil on canvas 23¼ x 35¼ inches (59 x 89.5 cm.) provenance

Kunsthandel Pieter A. Scheen B.V., The Hague, where acquired by Private Collection, Wellesley, Massachusetts, until 2015 literature

Pieter A. Scheen, Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1880, Uitgeverij Pieter A. Scheen BV, ‘s-Gravenhage, 1981, p. 630, no. 700, illustrated Cornelis Vreedenburgh received his initial training from his father Gerrit Vreedenburgh, Sr.. In 1902 he took lessons with Gerardus Johannes Roermeester in Noorden. Further guidance and encouragement were provided

by Willem Bastiaan Tholen, O.W.A. (Albert) Roelofs, and Pieter Arntzenius. In 1903 Leo Gestel continued his instruction. From 1904-1906, he was the recipient of a Royal Grant. His work took him to the Zuiderzee coast, Kaag, Loosdrecht, Naarden, Nunspect, the south of France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Palestine. After his 1912 marriage to the painter Marie Schotel, they lived for a time in then unfashionable St. Tropez. They would later settle in Hattem and by 1918 in Laren. When Queen Wilhelmina visited Laren in 1920, Vreedenburgh acted as her guide to several artists’ studios. He was a member of the Pulchri Studio, Vereniging Sint Lucas, Gooische schildersvereniging, and Arti et Amicitae who awarded him the Willink van Collen Prize in 1904.

Vreedenburgh specialized in floral still lifes, interiors, cityscapes, and landscapes, executed in watercolor and oil.

His art formed part of the permanent collections of the museums of Dordrecht, Eindhoven, Enkhuizen, Laren, and Utrecht.1 There have been four museum retrospectives on Vreedenburgh since his death in 1946, the last mounted in 2000, at the Stadsmuseum, Woerden.

In Boerderij, Vreedenburgh presents the viewer with a Dutch pastoral dream. Bathed in sunlight, a woman sits before a brick and stone house with green shutters and door, fronted by flowers. The sky is dotted with a few puffy clouds, and judging from the shadows on the ground, it is midday. The glass-like surface of a canal, flows across the foreground, filled with impressionistic reflections cast by its surroundings. A solitary white duck floats on its waters, while two more bask along the bank. The midground is a green meadow with a windmill visible in the distance. In Holland water has always been as important as land. Wherever one travels dikes, rivers, canals, ditches, seas, beaches, lakes, and locks are found. Vreedenburgh had a deep seated passion for such scenes, whether encountered in Amsterdam, Kaag, on the lakes of Loosdrecht or the Zuiderzee coast,2 and it is from these subjects that his best works were fashioned.

Continued

Biographical information taken from Pieter A. Scheen, “Cornelis Vreedenburgh”, op. cit., p. 560; Sigrid Thomassen, Cornelis Vreedenburgh, 1880-1946: schilder van stad, land en water, Van Spijk Art Projects, Venlo, 2000, p. 93; “Cornelis Vreedenburgh” on Falcon Lexicon artists Laren-Blaricum website www.devalk.com/Kunstenaars; and “Cornelis Vreedenburgh” on rkd.nl (RKD Explore) website.

2 “Cornelis Vreedenburgh” on Falcon Lexicon artists website, op. cit..

1

Importantly this work was acquired from Pieter A. Scheen in The Hague by a private collector from Wellesley, Massachusetts. It was also illustrated in Scheen’s monumental dictionary, Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1880. Published in 1981 it details biographies of Dutch artists born between 1750-1880. The third generation of an art-dealing family, this work along with his father Pieter Arie Scheen’s 1970 two-volume work, Lexicon Nederlandse Beeldende Kunstenaars 1750-1950, constitute the standard references for the field. In large part due to their efforts, many of these artists’ reputations remained intact, and their work granted just appreciation.3 The dazzling imagery of Boerderij is almost unmatchable in Vreedenburgh’s oeuvre, so it is hardly surprising that Scheen chose to publish this painting to exemplify the artist’s profound capabilities.

“Pieter Arie Scheen” on Dictionary of Art Historians website dictionaryofarthistorians.org.

3

Loaned to Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan EDITH HUME (Truro circa 1840 – after 1904) Watching for the Return of the Ships on the Beach at Katwijk signed E. Hume in the lower left oil on canvas 24 x 42 inches (61 x 106.8 cm.)

EXHIBITED Flint Institute of Arts Exhibition, The Art of Collecting, November 27, 2015 – January 3, 2016

Sold to The Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York GABRIEL CORNELIUS RITTER VON MAX (Sloup v Cechách, Bohemia 1840 – Munich 1915) The Martyrdom of St. Ludmilla signed G. MAX. and dated 864. in the lower left oil on canvas 357⁄16 x 39¼ inches (90.4 x 100.1 cm.) ˆ

Museums that have purchased works of art from Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and Mackelvie Trust in New Zealand The Black Watch Regimental Museum, Balhousie Castle, Perth, Scotland El Paso Museum of Art, El Paso, Texas Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan The Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska The Fritz Behrens Foundation for the Landesmuseum, Hanover, Germany La Salle University Art Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, The Netherlands Natural History Museum, London, England New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Rienzi, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky Tredegar House, Newport, Wales Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City, Utah Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne, Germany

BACK COVER

: ARTHUR WASSE, NO. 14 (detail) : GIACOMO GUARDI, NO. 5 (detail)

INSIDE BACK COVER

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