The most expensive works of art in the world and their histories (or lack thereof)-Part One

by Marc Masurovsky

Our collective jaws routinely drop when we read about a work of art selling for sums of money that most of us cannot comprehend or even perceive. And yet, there exists an informal club of men and women who are capable of spending such sums.

We won’t waste time wondering whether or not they actually enjoy the art objects on which they lavish huge sums. Their investment redefines what is meant by “priceless.” Is priceless an unattainable sum for the common mortal? Is it a sum that is beyond the reach of a billionaire? Or is it a sum that does not exist?

No matter.

“Transparency”, read less opacity, is the operative principle pertaining to research into the history of art objects even when they fetch sums symbolized by figures that contain eight or nine Arabic numerals.

Let’s take a look at some of these objects for which their proud owners spent at least 60 million dollars.



1. Bassin aux Nympheas, 1919, by Claude Monet sold for 66 million dollars at Christie’s on June 24, 2008.

Bassin aux nymphéas, 1919, Claude Monet-Source: Christie's

It belonged initially to the famous Paris art dealing family of Bernheim-Jeune who then sold this dreamy painting to a member of the Durand-Ruel family, another Parisian art dealer, from there to Sam Salz, Norton Simon, an owner in Indiana and then the Millers whose estate sold it off in 2008. This information is accessible through the Christie’s catalogue.


2. The massacre of the Innocents, 1610, by Peter Paul Rubens sold for 76 million dollars in July 2002 through Sotheby’s. Originally misattributed to Jan van den Hoecke, it remained in the same family for close to two centuries. Then it changed owners either before or right after the First World War (1914-1918), fell into the hands of an Austrian family whose patriarch did not like it, thinking it was “ugly” and consigned it to a monastery until the 89-year old heiress of said Austrian family had a change of heart and decided to put it up for sale.

The Massacre of the Innocents, 1610, Peter Paul Rubens

3. Le Moulin de la Galette, by Auguste Renoir, sold for 78 million dollars on May 15, 1990 at Christie’s. The smaller of the two versions that Renoir painted, no one knows for certain whether it was painted before or after its more famous larger version which Renoir completed in 1876. It went through the now defunct New York art gallery, Knoedler’s, where John Hay Whitney acquired it in 1929. It remained in the Whitney family until 1990 when it was auctioned and sold to a maverick Japanese businessman, Mr. Saito. He later ran out of money and was forced to sell off his assets including this Renoir painting and one by Van Gogh. Rumor has it that this less ambitious version of “Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette” ended up in a private Swiss collection. 

Le Moulin de la Galette, n. d., Auguste Renoir

4. Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890, by Vincent van Gogh sold for 82 million dollars on May 15, 1990 at Christie’s. Its history carries with it the taint of Nazi cultural policies aimed at works that were deemed objectionable because of their content and execution. This painting by van Gogh changed hands a number of times in the early 20th century, through the Paul Cassirer gallery in Berlin then Galerie Druet in Paris before ending up in the permanent collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Following the rise to power of the Nazis on January 30, 1933, museum officials there tried their best to shield their “degenerate” works from the prying eyes of the Nazis. Unfortunately, “Dr. Gachet” was a well-known work and van Gogh did not whet the esthetic appetites of the new barbarians clad in brown and black uniforms. Pursuant to official Reich policies, the painting was de-accessioned in 1937 and joined other captive works in the ever-expanding collection of Reichmarschall Hermann Goering. With the help of Joseph Angerer, art historian and art dealer in the pay of Nazi officials, Goering sold “Dr. Gachet” to a German banker, Franz Koenigs, who then allegedly turned around and sold it or relinquished it to Siegfried Kramarsky. The Kramarsky family fled to New York just in time with the van Gogh. The painting was placed on long-term loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as of 1984. Thereupon, the Kramasky heirs decided to sell it. Mr. Saito, a Japanese businessman who boasted of possessing a vast fortune, spent a small fortune on the van Gogh, breaking all records to date for a painting by the tortured Dutch master.

Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890, van Gogh

Then, the painting disappeared from view. It did not help that Mr. Saito went into such exponential debt that, no doubt, “Dr. Gachet” was sold in a private sale. But to whom?

Charles Goldstein, executive director of the New York-based Commission for Art Recovery (CAR), was quoted as saying that, one way or another, the title to the painting is clouded and resale will be difficult. Which would explain why the painting has not resurfaced in the past two decades. Condemned, due to a tainted title, to remain in the global parallel art market of sub rosa transactions. This will not help the Koenigs heiress to recover the painting that she claims was not sold consensually to Kramasky. Or so it would seem.

See the fascinating book by Cynthia Saltzman, “The Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a Van Gogh Masterpiece, Money, Politics, Collectors, Greed, and Loss” which takes the story of Dr. Gachet up to Mr. Saito.

Three Impressionist paintings, three (or rather two) destinies

On March 1, 1941, the Paris art dealership of Durand-Ruel ships to its German client, Mr. Wolfgang Krüger, three high-priced paintings by noted French Impressionists:

1/ “Les Meules, le matin” by Claude Pissarro, painted in 1899

Les meules, le matin, Claude Pissarro
Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

2/ “Promenade sous bois”, by Auguste Renoir, painted in 1910

Promenade, sous-bois, Auguste Renoir
Source: Culture France

3/ “Noyers, plaine de Veneux-Madon,” by Alfred Sisley.

Noyers, plaine de Veneux-Madon, Alfred Sisley
Source: Culture France

While in Paris during the German occupation of France, Mr. Krüger, a Berlin-based businessman and avid art collector, enjoyed his stays at the Hotel Saint-James & Albany. He paid 385,000 Francs for the three Impressionist works.

Fate would have it that the Pissarro painting ends up at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, courtesy of a bequest in the name of an American scion and philanthropist, Douglas Dillon. The odd thing about the provenance of the Pissarro is the name of the person who ostensibly owned it prior to Durand-Ruel, to whom that person had sold it in early 1941. Funny time to sell Impressionist works of art. But, let’s not think the worst of this work. The Met should be innocent until proven otherwise. The name of that previous owner is Braunthed, who lived in Neuilly sur Seine, a very wealthy suburb of Paris, home, in the 1930s, to some of the wealthiest members of the Jewish community and especially to German Jewish refugees who had settled there after Hitler had come to power in Germany.
Until someone can clear up who “Braunthed” is, the mystery remains as to the circumstances under which “Braunthed” sold the Pissarro painting to Durand-Ruel eight months after the Nazis began to plunder Jewish collections in the Paris region. Moreover, no one has asked Durand-Ruel why it made it a habit of selling wonderful works of art to German industrialists, bankers, and aristocrats, during World War II. Perhaps, their client relationship dated back to the roaring twenties. Still, that's no excuse, is it?

The two other works suffered a less glamorous fate, despite the fact that they were purchased from Durand-Ruel by the same individual, Wolfgang Krüger, at the same time. Allied troops "captured" or "liberated" the one by Renoir and the other by Sisley, after the fall of the Third Reich.  Before being repatriated to France as of "unknown origin," they allegedly went through the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP).  At least, the Renoir painting--Promenade, sous-bois-- did, according to the French Ministry of Culture.  If so, there is no trace of it in the MCCP database produced by the Deutsches Historisches Museum (DHM) under the supervision of Angelika Enderlein.  The so-called Munich number--7519--does not correspond to a painting by Renoir, but rather to a work by Panini.  Back to square one. 

 "Promenade, sous-bois" ended up at the Renoir House (Maison Renoir) in Cagnes-sur-Mer as MNR 207 where it keeps company to another ill-fated MNR painting by Renoir, “la Femme au puits”, also known as MNR 579, while the Sisley adorns the walls of a municipal museum in the birthplace of the "damned poet" Arthur Rimbaud, Charleville-Mézières.  Why on earth did that small town receive the painting by Sisley? Political favor? Enriching local collections with stolen property? Who knows? In any event, the Sisley painting that once belonged to Mr. Krüger is now branded as MNR 209.

And so it goes.

Three paintings purchased from the same art dealership in Paris during Year Two (or Year 1.5, depending on how you count) of the Nazi occupation of France, ending up in two different nations, one ostensibly unfettered by the shackles of war while the two others remain in that purgatory called MNR. Why did the Pissarro not end up in the French Museum system as a MNR painting? According to the Metropolitan Museum's website, the first post-1945 owner of the Pissarro was Robert F. Woolworth, who then consigned the painting to the now-defunct Knoedler Gallery in New York.  Where did Mr. Woolworth obtain the Pissarro? From Mr. Wolfgang Krüger? or from yet someone else?

What made the Renoir and Sisley works fit that category despite the fact that they shared a common wartime fate? If anything, the Pissarro is far more suspect than the Renoir and the Sisley.

Mystery…

Looted Renoir painting on the French Riviera

by Marc Masurovsky

SS Officer Hermann Brandl, also known as the head of the infamous black market organization in wartime Paris called “Otto” left France in a hurry shortly before the Liberation with at least one if not two truckloads full of loot. One item that he had stolen was a painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, entitled “La femme au puits”, also known by its German title as “Junge Frau am Brunnen.” Renoir had painted this modest work in the area around Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1886.

Junge Frau am Brunnen, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Captain Doubinsky, Rose Valland’s deputy in the French Zone of Occupation, located the warehouse where Brandl had stored the goods he plundered in France in a small farming community called Kölblöd west of Passau, and had them transferred in early 1949 to the Munich Central Collecting Point for further identification. “La Femme au Puits” was one of a small group of paintings by Renoir among the many works stolen by Brandl from Nazi victims as well as dozens of decorative objects, furniture items, antiques, and works on paper. 

Ko 7, front
Source: MCCP Datenbank via Bundesarchiv

Ko 7, back
Source: MCCP Datenbank via Bundesarchiv

The Renoir painting was repatriated to France on June 3, 1949. Owner unknown, the painting was consigned to the French museum authorities for ultimate disposition. As had happened with so many other unclaimed looted works of art of museum quality, "La Femme au Puits" ended up in a Paris museum depot where it languished for decades before being transferred to the depot of the Musée d’Orsay, a museum in the heart of Paris inaugurated in December 1986 to house mostly 19th and 20th century works of art. In 1995, “La Femme au Puits” left the Orsay Depot and headed south to the sunny shores of the French Riviera where it is now at the Musée Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer. It is doubtful that the public will be made aware of the checkered history of this small painting which is waiting for its rightful owner to identify and claim it.

Musee Renoir, Cagnes-sur-Mer
Source: Wikipedia

Current research will focus on someone by the name of de la Chapelle who acquired this painting in April 1941 from the notorious Parisian art dealer, Raphael Gérard, 

Looted art in Italy

Although the more than 48 postwar Italian governments have been focused largely on what the Germans removed from Italy during their two-year occupation of the country, little attention has been paid to looted art entering the Italian art market from Western Europe, Switzerland, and Austria.

Italian art dealers are an expert lot with ties to galleries, museums, and collectors around the world, namely in Europe and the Americas. Despite the rise to power of Benito Mussolini in 1922 and the instauration of a Fascist government, normal trade relations and cultural exchanges persisted well into the 1930s between the new Italy and its neighbors, even as far away as the United States.

After the German invasion of Western Europe in spring 1940 and the systematic plundering of hundreds of Jewish collections that ensued over the next four years, Italian galleries were busily entering into the fray as possible avenues of recycling loot. Capitalizing on their privileged relations with art experts and museum officials from Nazi Germany, these Italian dealers were only too glad to be paid in kind with modernist and especially Impressionist works, in exchange for which they offered Italian and other Old Masters to German agents. Italian dealers like Ventura and Bonacossi were more than willing to adapt to the German way of trading art: My Bellotto for 2 Monets. Joke aside, this is as close to the truth as one can get when it comes to these exchanges.

The following works were used to pay off Italian dealers in exchanges brokered by Goering’s favorite art specialist, Walther Andreas Hofer:

A painting by Sisley belonging to the Lindon family in Paris;

Three paintings by Monet, one belonging to Lindon, the other two to Paul Rosenberg;

One painting by Renoir belonging to Paul Rosenberg;

One painting by Degas belonging to Paul Rosenberg;

One painting by Cézanne belonging to Alphonse Kann of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

ERR database—Impressionists and their collectors

Usually, when people think of art restitution or art looted by the Nazis, they tend to believe that most stolen objects consisted of paintings, drawings and etchings, and more specifically, works by the Impressionists and their followers. Popular names that come to mind: Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Pierre Matisse, and Paul Cézanne.

When the art specialists of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) pilfered the homes and galleries of collectors and dealers across French territory, but more specifically in and around Paris, they came across troves of Impressionist works. One would think that almost anyone who was anyone would collect Impressionists in France, right? Wrong!

On closer look, here's what we found out.

Of the 270 owners who are currently listed in the ERR database, fewer than 10 per cent held works by Impressionists in their collections at the time of the German occupation of France in June 1940.

Let's do a survey by artist (Note: I use the word "unknown" to refer to the MA-B and UNB collections, categories created by the ERR staff to characterize mass seizures of objects from residential homes without due concern for their owners' identities):

• Pierre Bonnard: 8 known owners and at most 6 unknown. 
• Eugène Boudin: 9 known owners and at most 4 unknown. 
• Paul Cézanne: 2 known owners and at most 3 unknown. 
• Edgar Degas: 13 known owners and at most 2 unknown. 
• Paul Gauguin: 5 known owners 
• Marie Laurencin: 11 known owners and at most 3 unknown. 
• Edouard Manet: 7 known owners and 1 unknown. 
• Henri Matisse: 4 known owners and at most 11 unknown. 
• Claude Monet: 4 known owners and at most 4 unknown. 
• Auguste Renoir: 16 known owners and at most 9 unknown. 
• Edouard Vuillard: 7 known owners and 1 unknown. 

Needless to say, we can already conclude that the tastes of collectors in inter-war France extended way beyond the lure of Impressionists that seduces today's learned audiences in the global art market.

The question is: what did people collect if they didn't gravitate towards Impressionists?