Le quai malaquais

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Le Quai Malaquais et l'institut, Printemps (Camille Jacob Pissarro)
Le Quai Malaquais et l'institut, Printemps
Camille Jacob Pissarro , 1903
Oil on canvas
54 × 65 cm

Le Quai Malaquais - full title: Le Quai Malaquais et l'institut, Printemps (The Quai Malaquais and the Institute / Spring) - is a painting that the French painter Camille Pissarro created in the last year of his life. It was confiscated by the Gestapo in 1938 along with Samuel Fischer's art collection in Vienna and disappeared for decades as Nazi-looted art . In June 2007 it was found in a Swiss bank safe belonging to the art dealer Bruno Lohse .

description

Le Quai Malaquais et l'institut, Printemps is a work of late impressionism and shows elements of pointillism . It shows in Paris on the right bank of the Seine located Quai Malaquais . The road on which horse-drawn carts run runs diagonally, while at the bottom of the picture it occupies two thirds of the width and dominates the right half of the picture, it is reduced to a third in the golden ratio and is lost in the middle of the picture in rows of houses. At the same time, the river expands, the view of it is partially obscured by a row of trees with little greenery. In a shortened perspective, the Pont du Carrousel and the Pont des Arts form horizontal lines. The horizon line is interrupted by the dome of the Institut de France . The predominant colors are gray-brown and gray-blue.

The picture measures 54 × 65 centimeters and is signed on the lower right edge with C. Pissarro and dated 1903.

Provenance history

The painting was sold in 1904 by a son of Pissarro to the Bernheim-Jeune art dealer in Paris. The publisher Samuel Fischer acquired the picture on March 30, 1907 through the mediation of the Berlin art dealer Paul Cassirer . After his death in 1934, it became the property of his son-in-law Gottfried Bermann Fischer . Persecuted by the National Socialists as a Jew, he first emigrated to Vienna , later via Stockholm to New York . The Quai Malaquais , along with other works of art, remained in the family's Vienna home and was confiscated by the Gestapo in March 1938 . The National Socialist recycling center for Jewish removal goods delivered the painting for auction on May 21, 1940 at the Dorotheum auction house . In the local catalog it was incorrectly identified under lot number 339 as a painting by Paul Emile Pissarro, Camille's youngest son, under the title Pariser Boulevard with incorrect dating (1902) and dimensions (63 × 52 cm). It was auctioned for 1200 Reichsmarks by the Austrian art dealer Eugen Primavesi, who is said to have played an “inglorious role” in the trade in stolen art. Presumably Primavesi bought the Pissarro on behalf of the Berlin auctioneer and greatest profiteer of the Nazi art trade, Hans Wolfgang Lange .

After the war, Bermann Fischer hired a lawyer to look for the stolen art collection. Due to the incorrect information in the Dorotheum catalog, the painting could not be clearly identified, so a Pissarro painting in the estate of Hans W. Lange in 1946 was presumed to be not identical. Another clue led to Hans Wendland , Adolf Hitler's art dealer , who is said to have owned the picture before 1949. Since Bermann Fischer refused to pay for further information, Wendland declared all previous statements regarding the Quai Malaquais to be in error.

The first trace of the painting emerged in 2003 when Gisela Bermann Fischer , daughter of Gottfried Bermann Fischer, received a reference to an exhibition catalog from 1984. Thus, the painting was in Lausanne Fondation de l'Hermitage in the exhibition L'Impressionnisme dans les collections romandes (Impressionism in the collections of Romandie been shown) from 17 June to 31 October 1984th When asked, the museum did not provide any information on the origin or whereabouts. However, research revealed the suspicion that the consignor could have been the art dealer Bruno Lohse , who was involved in the art theft in France as the deputy director of the Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) task force during the Second World War . In response to inquiries in May 2003 and July 2006, however, Lohse stated that he knew nothing about the Pissarro.

In January 2007, the German art dealer Peter Griebert and the American historian Jonathan Petropoulos contacted Gisela Bermann Fischer and stated that they were acting on behalf of a Swiss community of heirs who had acquired the painting in good faith and now wanted to return it to the rightful owner. However, a finder's fee of 18 percent of the current market value of the Pissarro was required for the return to take place. Fischer filed charges of attempted extortion , and in the ensuing investigation, the suspicion against Bruno Lohse of having been in possession of the painting was confirmed. Bruno Lohse died on March 19, 2007 in Munich. It was found that this the founder and basically the owner Schönart institution with entry in the commercial register of Liechtenstein was on 1 June 1978 he gave himself this institution on June 28, 1978 fourteen paintings for the purpose of sale and these paintings in a Safe of the Zürcher Kantonalbank were kept. Peter Griebert, who was Lohse's confidante, had been authorized to sign for the safe since 1988 at the latest. This in turn was the son of the art dealer Bruno Griebert, who had worked for the ERR during the National Socialist era and was a friend and colleague of Bruno Lohse.

In June 2007 the Zurich district attorney had the contents of the safe confiscated. In addition to Pissarro's Quai Malaquais , it contained two other paintings and a number of documents, which in particular gave information about sales of paintings. The records found for the Pissarro painting contained a letter from a Swiss lawyer dated July 2, 1957, stating that Bruno Lohse had bought the painting for him in Berlin for $ 10,000. However, since it has been in the safe since 1978 and thus still in the possession of Lohse, a sham transaction is assumed for reasons of tax savings. From whom Lohse acquired the painting could not be clarified.

The painting was returned to Gisela Bermann Fischer in 2008. It was supposed to be auctioned at Christie's in the summer of 2009 , but was withdrawn an hour before the start of the auction after a nephew of Gisela Bermann Fischer had asserted claims. After an agreement was reached, the picture was auctioned on November 3, 2009; an unknown buyer bought it for $ 2.1 million.

See also

literature

  • Stefan Koldehoff: The pictures are among us. The business with Nazi looted art , Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2009, ISBN 978-3-8218-5844-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b lootedart.com: Nazi Art Theft: Pissarro's Le Quai Malaquais, Printemps , accessed December 4, 2011.
  2. ↑ The Standard: Restitution. The Hour of the “Ariseurs” , article from October 2, 2009 , accessed on December 4, 2011
  3. ↑ Stefan Koldehoff: The pictures are among us. The business of Nazi looted art , p. 101
  4. ↑ a b Tobias Timm: Robbed and betrayed. In: Die Zeit vom June 6, 2007, accessed on September 16, 2012.
  5. ↑ Stefan Koldehoff: The pictures are among us. The Business with Nazi Looted Art , p. 107
  6. ↑ Art. Das Kunstmagazin: Fall Auctions November 12, 2009 ( Memento of the original from December 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 4, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.art-magazin.de