Lady with a parrot at the window
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| Lady with a parrot at the window |
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| Caspar Netscher , 1666 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 46 × 37 cm |
| National Gallery of Art , Washington, DC |
Lady with a parrot at the window (sometimes just called " Lady at the Window " or " Lady with a Parrot ") is a painting by the German-northern Dutch painter Caspar Netscher (1639–1684). The work is dated to the year 1666. The painting measures 46 × 37 cm and is painted with oil paints on canvas and has been in the National Gallery of Art in Washington since 2016 .
description
The picture shows a young woman at a window. She wears a gray parrot on the index finger of her right hand and is feeding it with her left hand. Her gaze has turned away from the parrot and towards the potential viewer of the painting on this side of the window. A round bird cage stands on the left side of the window sill. There is a rug over the right side of the window sill. In the background of the right half stands a young domestic worker who is carrying a round tray in both hands.
history
Provenance
Originally the painting from the 17th century belonged to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich . It was presumably confiscated by the Nazis in the late 1930s in order to procure foreign currency. The art dealer Julius Böhler received the painting and sold it to a Dutch art dealer in 1938. The Jewish collector couple Hugo and Elisabeth Jacoba Andriesse in Belgium bought the painting.
The Andriesse collection with the painting “Lady with a Parrot at the Window” was stored in the bunker of the Royal Museum in Brussels in 1939 . They fled in 1940 over Portugal in the United States when the German Wehrmacht in Belgium invaded. Hugo Andriesse died in the United States in 1942, his wife was the sole heiress and died in 1963.
In 1942 the collection, and with it the painting, was confiscated by the Nazis a second time, with the Rosenberg Task Force in charge . The “List of works of art given to the collection of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring” from 1942 shows that the painting was received by the Special Staff Fine Arts, Working Group Louvre in Paris on March 14, 1942 .
After the World War, the work came to the art dealer Änne Abels in Cologne. The Barmer entrepreneur, collector and former president of the Bergische Chamber of Industry and Commerce Wuppertal-Remscheid and chairman of the Art and Museum Association Wuppertal Rudolf Ziersch (1867–1962) bought the painting from Abels in 1950. Ziersch donated the painting to the Wuppertal Municipal Museum in 1950 on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (today under the name Von der Heydt Museum).
restitution
The community of heirs Elisabeth Andriesse, a charitable association in the United States, submitted an application in early 2013 to request restitution of the work. The restitution, i.e. the return of the work, should then take place. The Wuppertal City Council had formally voted on the resolution on February 24, 2014. A reply from the Reparation Office as to whether compensation payments had already been made was still pending at the end of January 2014; the general release was subject to this reply. Further details of the restitution were clarified at the administrative level.
For the Von der Heydt Museum, according to its director Gerhard Finckh , the return to the heirs is a matter of course. Nevertheless, Finckh said: “ The picture actually belongs to the Alte Pinakothek. “The examination of the work was more complicated because there are seven versions of the picture. A number on the back, however, referred to the Alte Pinakothek.
Acquisition of the National Gallery of Art
In May 2014, it was announced that the community of heirs would like to auction the painting for charity at Christie's in New York . The money is to be used primarily for a cancer center. Christie's hoped to raise three million dollars (the equivalent of around 2.2 million euros) for Caspar Netscher's work. The painting finally changed hands for five million dollars in October 2016 and went to the National Gallery in Washington.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Hans Wille: The picture of the month , Städt. Wuppertal Museum, 1961
- ↑ a b c Is the “lady at the window” going back to the heirs of the original owner? Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from February 6, 2014
- ↑ a b Wuppertal returns looted art Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) of January 29, 2014
- ↑ a b c d e Restitution of an art object from formerly Jewish possession ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Resolution proposal VO / 0042/14 of January 14, 2014 in the council information system of the city of Wuppertal
- ^ A b Nazi looted art from Wuppertal under the hammer Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) from May 13, 2014
- ↑ Wanted: A Lady with a Parrot. In: blogspot.de. plundered-art.blogspot.de, April 22, 2011, accessed on October 27, 2016 .
- ↑ Jörn Koldehoff: Former Von-der-Heydt picture changes hands: lady, parrot and five million dollars. In: wuppertaler-rundschau.de. Wuppertaler Rundschau, accessed on October 27, 2016 .
