"Portrait of Alfonso II d'Este and his secretary, Pistofilo," by Titian

Portrait of Alfonso II d'Este and his secretary, by Titian

by Marc Masurovsky

Josef Skvor was a Czech businessman born on 8 April 1888 in Chlistov (Czechoslovakia). On 10 January 1931, Skvor, who had an apartment in Paris on Boulevard Pereire, acquired a painting by Tiziano Vecello (Titian) under the title “Portrait of Alfonso I d’Este” from a Paris art dealer, Paul Jurschewitz. The painting had been in the collection of Marquis Franzoni until the latter sold it to a Mr. Bellini from whom Jurschewitz purchased it in 1930. At the outbreak of WWII in September 1939, Skvor was the director of Skoda Works in Prague. In 1940, he or his agents deposited the Titian in a safe #691 at a branch of the Crédit Lyonnais on Boulevard des Italiens in Paris. (In subsequent documents, the vault number is designated as #569 and #596). 

The German army began its occupation of France in June 1940 after roundly defeating the French army. In the months that followed, according to Skvor, German officials paid several visits to his bank ostensibly to view the contents of his safe since Czech citizens were considered to be enemies of the Reich. On 17 December 1940, Jurschewitz wrote to Skvor and his “authorized representative” Alexander Bagenoff to confirm the terms of the sale of the Titian which was finalized the following day, on 18 December 1940. According to Skvor, someone he called Mrs. Dittrich (Maria Almas-Dietrich of Munich) showed up at the Crédit Lyonnais in Paris flanked by two SS men and with a proxy which authorized a cash payment of 1,500,000 francs to Bagenoff, Skvor’s representative. The document in Almas-Dietrich’s hands bore the stamp of the Reichskanzlei in Berlin, whose boss was Martin Bormann, the “secretary” to Adolf Hitler. She then removed the painting. 

Maria Almas-Dietrich

Almas-Dietrich, a close friend of Adolf Hitler's, took the painting back to Munich where she lived and ran a thriving international art business. The painting was eventually transferred to Berchtesgaden, one of Hitler’s favorite residences. In 1945, Skvor petitioned the French Art Restitution Commission (CRA) for assistance in locating the painting. One year later, in November 1946, Almas-Dietrich delivered the receipt issued by the Reichskanzlei to the office of Capt. Edwin Rae, head of the MFA&A Section at OMG Bavaria in Munich. She denied that she had shown up at the Crédit Lyonnaiss with two SS men to seize the painting and that the transaction had been conducted “in orderly fashion.” She reiterated that the painting had already been offered numerous times on the art market before 1939. 

In December 1946, Hans Konrad Röthel (1909-1982), co-founder of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte (ZIKG) in Munich and curator at the MCCP, echoed what Almas-Dietrich had told Capt. Rae regarding the Titian painting, namely that it had been available for sale on the market for quite some time. He also mentioned that Jurschewitz’s fiancée, Ms. Laesch, wondered if her husband-to-be may have had a financial interest in the Titian. Finally, he upheld the official American policy of repatriation of works back to their country of origin. In the Titian’s case, he felt that France should recover the painting, believing that it had been “legally sold… for 1.8 million francs (as opposed to 1.5 million francs, the oft-cited figure in this case.).

While the Americans supported the French claim on the painting, the Czech government stood by Jozef Skvor in his attempt to recover the Titian, arguing that he had been the victim of a “forced sale” to which he had not consented. His word against Maria Almas-Dietrich, a notorious Nazi art dealer, Dr. Hans Konrad Röthel of the ZIKG and the MCCP in Munich, Albert S. Henraux, president of the French Commission on Art Restitution (CRA), Elie Doubinsky, French representative to the MFA&A at the Munich Collecting Point and deputy to Rose Valland, chief restitution officer in the French Zone of Occupation. Paul Jurschewitz who had sold the Titian to Skvor and allegedly brokered the sale to Almas-Dietrich, was also the same individual who had advised the Germans on where to find famed art dealer Paul Rosenberg’s prized inventory after the latter had fled to New York. The postwar French authorities arrested Jurschewitz on suspicions of wartime trafficking in looted art.

MCCP card #8836 (front)

MCCP card #8836 (back)

The Titian painting sat at the Munich Central Collecting Point from 11 October 1945 to 21 January 1948. While awaiting its repatriation to France which Elie Doubinsky was pressing his American colleagues in Munich to hasten, pursuant to repatriation policies issued by the Four-Power Committee in Berlin, some MFA&A members were still under the impression in 1947 that the painting would eventually be returned to Czechoslovakia once the French and the Czechs had a chance to sit at a table and discuss the salient issues surrounding its ownership and the circumstances of its wartime sale. For their part, the French were unequivocal: since the painting was taken from France, it had to be returned to the country from which it was removed. Henraux insisted on the matter, betraying his excitement at the prospect of France acquiring a first-rate painting by a master such as Titian. Furthermore, their view was that the financial transaction of December 1940 canceled Skvor’s claims to ownership. The new MFA&A chief at OMG Bavaria, Richard Howard, backed the French position and reminded the Czechs of the Four-Power decision on repatriation.

Edwin Rae, MFA&A, and his staff

Amidst the brouhaha surrounding the legitimacy of the transaction between Maria Almas-Dietrich and Skvor’s representative, Mr. Alexander Bagenoff, neither the French nor the Americans gave any consideration to Skvor’s allegations that he had been subjected to a forced sale. Maria Almas-Dietrich who had “removed” from occupied France countless works of art for Hitler, Goering, Heinrich Hoffmann and herself, was more believable in their eyes than the purported Czech victim. There is no indication either as to the true nature of the relationship between Skvor and Bagenoff. Did the latter sell him out? Did the Germans pressure him? We will never know because he died during the war. Did Skvor actually collect the money as the French gratuitously asserted? No evidence suggests that he actually did.

Keep in mind also that the Cold War was in full swing while the fate of the Titian was under debate. From 1945 to 1948, relations between the US and Czechoslovakia deteriorated to a point of no-return due to Soviet aggression in that country which culminated in a hostile takeover of the country’s government in February 1948. The US had already frozen restitutions to “Soviet bloc” nations of Eastern Europe. These countries' claims for assets looted by the Germans and uncovered in the Western Zones of occupation in Germany and Austria were systematically rejected by the Western Powers. Could this state of affairs have influenced the MFA&A Section in its determination to deny the possibility of a restitution to Skvor which could only benefit America’s ally, France?

It's an odd story with colorations of early Cold War hysteria which benefited France’s museums desirous to enrich their cultural heritage at any cost. Sometimes, it’s not what you read that matters but what lies behind the curtain.

Technical specifications:

Author: Tiziano Vecello, known as Titian (1488/1490-1576)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Measurements: 102 x 116 cm
Titles given to the painting: Portrait of Alfonso d’Este; Portrait of Alfonso I d’Este; Double portrait of Alfonso I d’Este and his secretary; Portrait of Alfonso II d’Este and his secretary, Pistofilo

Sources:

Note from Paul Jurschewitz to Josef Skvor, 10 January 1932, RG 260 M1946 Roll 40 NARA.
Paul Jurschewitz to Skvor and Mr. Bagenoff, 17 December 1940, RG 260 M1949_Case C42 C6/36_Roll 11 NARA.
Skvor to the Director of the Commission de recuperation artistique, Paris, 5 November 1945. RG260 M1946 Roll 40 NARA
Josef Skvor undated application for the restitution of Czechoslovak Property # C6/2156 and 2157. [OMGUS number=C-42], RG260 M1949_Case C42 C6/36_Roll 11 NARA
Note from Edwin C. Rae, chief, MFA&A Section, Restitution Branch, OMG Bavaria, to Mr. Taper, OMGUS, Economics Division, Restitution Branch, 30 November 1946, RG 260 M1949_Case C42 C6/36_Roll 11 NARA.
Note from Dr. Hans Konrad Röthel to Samuel R. Rosenbaum regarding the “Portrait of Alfonso d’Este and his secretary”, 10 December 1946, RG260 M1949_Case C42 C6/36_Roll 11 NARA
Handwritten note, undated, Munich, Germany, ca. 1947 RG260 M1949_Case C42 C6/36_Roll 11 NARA
Richard Howard to OMGUS, 2 juin 1947, RG 260, M1946, Roll 40, NARA
Note from Richard Howard, Chief MFA&A Section, OMG Bavaria, to MFA& A Section, Restitution Branch, Economics Division, OMG Bavaria 20 June 1947, RG260 M1949_Case C42 C6/36_Roll 11 NARA
Captain Elie Doubinsky, French representative, MCCP, to Herbert Leonard, Chief MFA&A Section, Munich, 7 October 1947 RG 260 M1946 Roll 40 NARA.

Photos

Portrait of Alfonso II d'Este and his secretary, Pistofilo, courtesy of www.dhm.de
Edwin Rae with his staff courtesy of: https://www.artmagazin.hu/articles/archivum/1c6f0bb5a07c9f9ad66e8809213416c3

Maria Almas-Dietrich courtesy of https://agorha.inha.fr/detail/25