"The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian" by Andrea del Castagno

by Marc Masurovsky

Stranger things have happened regarding works of art with no written pasts that end up in a world-class museum like New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. In this case, our story revolves around “The martyrdom of Saint Sebastian,” a 15th century Italian Old Master painting initially attributed to Andrea del Castagno but later pronounced to be by Francesco Botticini (di Giovanni). 

The New York Times article printed an article entitled “Florence seeking US held painting: Authorities want masterpiece owned by Metropolitan-Rome unlikely to act” about this painting’s weird odyssey on Sunday 27 June 1954. 

Story I: New York Times/Associated Press

After Benito Mussolini was deposed as the “Duce” of Fascist Italy, Marshal Badoglio brought Italy on the side of the Allies and declared war on Nazi Germany on October 13, 1943. Germany invaded Italy and Florence remained under German occupation from then until the early days of August 1944. The persecution of the Jews, initiated by Italian Fascists as of fall of 1938, intensified under German occupation. 243 Jews living in Florence were deported to the East. Fewer than 10 percent came back. Most Jews’ property was plundered and rarely returned after the war to survivors or the relatives of the victims.

During WWII, a painting by Andrea del Castagno was stored in an attic of a building in Florence as part of a larger stash of “hidden” art works. Were they actually hidden or just stored there? And to whom did they belong? Could it be that their owners were Jews persecuted by Fascists and Nazi occupiers?

Enter Luigi Albrighi, described as a “Florentine lawyer.” Soon after its discovery, this gentleman gained possession of the del Castagno and was able to secure an export license for sale abroad. It is unclear whether Mr. Albrighi was one of the “art dealers who discovered and removed” the painting from the attic where it was found. Albrighi told the Fascist authorities that the painting was “valueless” in order to get export papers for it, which is perhaps what got him into a heap of trouble later on.

The painting was later shipped to New York where it passed through the hands of Knoedler gallery which then sold it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1949 for a tidy sum considering that the painting was “valueless” at time of its exportation. This acquisition by a world-class museum triggered an investigation by Florentine authorities and the Italian Ministry of Culture, the former not understanding how a high-value work of art could have been exported “clandestinely” and “illegally.” After five years, the Italian government apparently refused a request for repatriation of the painting submitted by the Florentine authorities. Mr. Albrighi had even been arrested and, pleading ignorance as to the value of the painting, he was released. Case closed?

Story 2: the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Who was Luigi Albrighi?

According to numerous sources, Luigi Albrighi was a Milanese lawyer turned art dealer after World War I. He gained notoriety following the sale in 1930 to a British lord of a “Madonna with veil” attributed to Botticelli which ended up at the London-based Courtauld Institute. The painting in question, which earned Albrighi a lot of money, turned out to be an elaborate fake.
Albrighi, operating as “Galleria Luigi Albrighi” in Florence, was quite savvy about gaining access to high-quality Old Master works which he sold to noted collectors like Count Bonacossi Contini and to museums like the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Apparently, he did business throughout the Fascist years. One of his close connections was Bernard Berenson.

The back of the painting bears an export stamp indicating that the permit to export the painting was granted by Fascist officials on July 22, 1944, barely three weeks before US troops liberated Florence from the German yoke at great material cost to the city. When did the painting actually reach the US? Art exports to the United States would resume in earnest after mid-1946 when wartime restrictions were lifted on imports of art to the United States. Had the painting been shipped right after the license was granted, it would have been subject to the Allied naval blockade and possible seizure by British naval blockade authorities.

Let’s take a closer look at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s understanding of the del Castagno’s history.

The provenance reads as follows:

?conti De Larderel, Florence, by descent (until 1944);
?conte Giovanni Rasini, Milan;
[Jean Marchig and (?)Albrighi];
Cotton Trading (until 1947; sold for $75,000 to Pinakos and Knoedler);
[Pinakos, Inc. (Rudolf J. Heinemann), and Knoedler, New York, 1947–48, as by Andrea del Castagno; sold to MMA]

If read according to accepted conventions in provenance research, the published provenance establishes a continuous line of ownership involving distinguished families (de Larderel and Rasini) from Milan and Florence whose names are associated as owners of the “Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian” by Andrea del Castagno. Three question marks in front of each name presented as previous owners of the painting, suggest the possibility that they might not have come into possession of the painting. At some point after 1944, Albrighi acquired the painting together with Jean Marchig. They in turn sold it to what we presume is a corporate entity, “Cotton Trading” which held the painting until 1947. That entity then sold the painting to Pinakos, an import-export company established by Rudolph Heinemann exclusively for the purpose of buying and selling Old Master paintings and bringing them to market in New York through Knoedler’s. Pinakos then sold the painting to Knoedlers in 1947 and, two years later, the Met acquired it in 1949.

Story 3: the truth, whatever that is, is somewhere in the middle

The New York Times/Associated Press version of events as related to the American public on June 27, 1954, hints at an odd event which placed a painting without much value and hidden in an attic, discovered by art dealers, and transferred to a lawyer who turned out to be an art dealer of some (dis)repute, active throughout the Fascist era (not mentioned by the New York Times). The lawyer/dealer gets an export permit from local Fascists and, at some point, the painting leaves Italy and reaches the New York art market. The Italian government and regional authorities in Florence get all bothered about this export (not atypical for the Italian government when an Italian Old Master leaves its territory). The Metropolitan Museum of Art eliminates the attic story by establishing continuous ownership for the painting until it reaches Albrighi, unless…

Who is this Jean Marchig? His actual name is Giovanni Marchig, he worked as a restorer and, apparently, was in business with Albrighi. As an aside, Signor Morandotti, a Rome-based art dealer, had introduced Giovanni Marchig [Jean Marchig] in the early 1940s to Walther Andreas Hofer, Goering’s official art agent in German occupied territories. [Source: The ERR, Consolidated Interrogation Report #2, p. 105 RG 260 M1946 Reel 121.] Moreover, Marchig had sold other works through Hofer and intended for Goering and Hitler. After Florence was liberated, Marchig and Albrighi obtained permission in October 1944, from the American army to locate and inventory the collection of Bernard Berenson stranded in an abandoned villa near Florence. The inventory was drawn up on 23 October 1944. [MFAA Field reports 23 October 1944, Toscana region, RG 239 M1944 Reel 66].

More bizarre is the “sale” of the painting, Fascist export license in hand, to a “Cotton Trading Company.” No location provided for this British or Anglo-colonial sounding corporate entity. The closest company meeting this description was a “cotton trading” company established in 1938 by an Austrian Jew named Friedrich Unger and based in the Netherlands with outlets in France. No proof that it is the same one. A cotton trading business acquiring Italian Old Masters in the immediate post-war years? That is the kind of transaction that would have been made more than one Allied official bristle. Some people might venture to say that this cotton trading was just a window dressing operation, a “cloak”, to conceal transactions on the postwar European market.

The fact remains that this entity, according to the Met’s published provenance, sells the del Castagno to agents of the New York-based gallery, “Pinakos”, represented by Rudolf J. Heinemann, a still-enigmatic figure of the New York Old Masters world in whose honor a room full of Tiepolo paintings graces the walls of the Metropolitan Museum. Heinemann’s unusual access to high-quality Old Masters in wartorn Europe which he gingerly brings across the Atlantic throughout the late 1940s and 1950s for the benefit of Knoedlers and wealthy American collectors, has never been quite elucidated. Be that as it may, Pinakos acquired the del Castagno in 1947 and transferred it to Knoedler’s which sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in May 1949, no questions asked since the export papers were in order and the once “valueless” painting had suddenly earned its place in the sun as a “masterpiece.”

The Met dismissed the Italian request for repatriation of the del Castagno as “old news.” In later years, its experts challenged the del Castagno attribution and substituted in its place Francesco Botticini (di Giovanni) as the presumed author of the painting.

What was the whole kerfuffle about? And why was the painting stashed in an attic somewhere in Florence? Whose attic? By today’s standards, if we have any left, an Italian Old Master abandoned in the attic of a Florentine building evokes all sorts of images, mostly bad ones, like abandoned property belonging to Fascist/Nazi victims or, worse, loot set aside by the plunderers to be picked up at a “safe” time. The “loot” was in fact “discovered” by local art dealers. One way or another, there is too much to this story to simply be ignored and dismissed as “old news.”

Moreover the disconnect is nothing short of surreal between officials in Florence and their superiors in Rome over the legal status of the del Castagno and the circumstances of its exit from Italy. Since the export permit was issued by a Fascist official, did that weigh into the determination made by the Florentine authorities that the export had been conducted “clandestinely” and “illegally”? If so, what was their problem with Albrighi and Marchig? Were they symbolic of the deposed regime? If not, were they known as “dodgy” individuals on the local art market which explains the arrest and release of Albrighi?

And why does the Metropolitan Museum not see the discordance between the official narrative and its rendition of the provenance of the painting? All this to say that more work is needed to elucidate what really happened to this “valueless” work of art.

Another opinionated exercise

by Marc Masurovsky

An opinionated exercise in text analysis (a segue to a similar undertaking)

Disclaimer: this deconstructive undertaking is not meant to judge a person’s good will, intentions, or motives, nor a person’s qualifications, merits, and contributions. Its purpose is to show how words can be interpreted, read, and critiqued. The text itself was picked because it is emblematic of the existing literature relative to the prickly questions of cultural property, cultural heritage, preservation of cultural assets against looting and their illegal trade on the global art and antiquities market.

I will confine this exercise to a paragraph which appeared at the beginning of an article entitled “Buying and selling antiquities in today’s market”, which was published in Spencer’s Art Law Journal in Spring 2012 (Vol. 3, No. 1, to be precise). 

William Pearlstein, its author, is a well-known and highly respected international art lawyer, formerly of the American Council for Cultural Policy (ACCP), a lobbying group for museums, dealers, and collectors founded by none other than Ashton Hawkins of Metropolitan Museum of Art fame. [http://www.culturalpolicycouncil.org/statement_purpose.htm ]. The last statement on the ACCP dates back to 2005. He is listed as the treasurer of the Committee for Cultural Policy.

Let’s start:

“Buying and selling ancient art requires the prudent purchaser to research the provenience (country of origin) and provenance (history of ownership) of an object and to evaluate the available information in the context of the legal framework discussed below. In my experience, objects that have a plausible history of ownership and origin, even if not fully documented, can, generally, be safely purchased. A partially-documented history does not necessarily indicate fresh looting or illegal export. Even objects that entirely lack history are also not necessarily smuggled or looted. The demand for documented provenance is a relatively recent phenomenon and many owners simply failed to keep records of their objects, which they treated like other household possessions. Nevertheless, potential penalties for the unwitting purchaser of smuggled or stolen objects include civil forfeiture (for which even bona fide purchasers are rarely compensated), and, for those who knew, or in retrospect should have known, jail. The good news is that prudence and diligent investigation will be rewarded. Even well-provenanced antiquities at the top of the antiquities market can be undervalued compared to other segments of today’s art market and will afford satisfaction for decades and validate the owner’s good taste and erudition.”

Let’s parse.

“Buying and selling ancient art requires the prudent purchaser to research the provenience (country of origin) and provenance (history of ownership) of an object and to evaluate the available information in the context of the legal framework discussed below.”

The word “provenience” is more accurately defined as the physical location and cultural context from which the object originated.

Research is the sine qua non for documenting the history and characteristics of a cultural object. Every object has a history of ownership, the starting point of which should be its maker or creator. When dealing with antiquities, that might not be possible, however, due to the immense passage of time, the circumstances under which the object was found, its physical condition, and the context of its location.

Regardless, from the get-go, the question of provenance enters a legal framework as concerns the history of its ownership.

“The purchaser is a prudent person”. What does prudence actually mean? How is prudence exercised? Is prudence a code word for “due diligence”? If so, why not just insert that expression into the sentence?

We find out later on that if the prudent purchaser has undertaken a “diligent investigation,” he will be ultimately rewarded for his efforts. Sure, but what constitutes a diligent investigation? After all, the effort displayed by the purchaser prior to acquisition is critical in assessing the level of risk associated with the purchase of an object for which there might be little or no documentation. What we do not know here is how to “… evaluate the available information…”: What if there is no information to evaluate due to an elliptical, minimalist or near-invisible provenance?

Let’s read on:

“In my experience, objects that have a plausible history of ownership and origin, even if not fully documented, can, generally, be safely purchased.”

“a plausible history of ownership and origin”

According to many art appraisers, too often times, their clients show up asking them to authenticate cultural objects before they are valuated. They submit provenances that are not only embellished but are utter forgeries. The appraiser grows accustomed to fiction masquerarding as provenance information when the expected provenance should reflect the stark reality of an object’s history for the purpose of obtaining the appraiser’s stamp of approval. In that regard, the appraiser becomes the first line of defense against deceptive practices in the art market.

The recent Knoedler forgery trial constitutes a cautionary tale. As we have been reading in the past several years, the sale of a painting by Mark Rothko which was not a Rothko by the now-defunct Knoedler art gallery contributed to the fatal demise of this eminent art establishment. Multiple warning flags had been raised by appraisers, art historians, fellow dealers which went unheeded and were dismissed for reasons that are still not too clear, greed being too easy an explanation. Knoedler and its president invested in a “plausible history of ownership and origin” of the pseudo-Rothko painting. As they say, if it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and quacks a duck, it might just be a duck or we can pass it off as a duck. Similarly if a painting looks like a Rothko, “radiates” like a Rothko, and is described as a Rothko, then it might just be a Rothko and we can sell it as a Rothko. Sure… the word “plausible” sends shivers down my spine and reminds me of the Nixon years when “plausible deniability” became the preferred line of defense of those who engineered the Watergate scandal.

If the history of ownership of an object is “plausible,” should you buy the object even if all you have in the provenance is “John Smith, 1969” and the object itself is older than Methuselah? The narrative underlying the object—its provenance—MUST BE believable, for better or for worst. Usually, the reputation of a person involved in the transaction helps to enhance the plausibility factor. That alone might compensate for any lacunae in the provenance. After all, how could you question an established international art historical authority, a senior curator in a distinguished museum, a person with a wall covered with PhDs, awards and other marks of distinction, a highly-regarded collector/dealer? People do make mistakes, though. Errare humanum est. it is the misguided, but very human, belief in pedigree which warps instincts, common sense, logical reasoning and critical thinking. In the case of Knoedler, the unfortunate buyer-the De Soles family-- found the Knoedler story “plausible” about the Rothko’s bizarre history and went home with a fake painting.

If a provenance is plausible, does it have to be real? Believability… plausibility… fictions are plausible, too. We all love a good story. After all, a fictional account is partly anchored in real life, even if it is twisted and embellished. Similarly with provenances, how simple can it be to embellish, twist or otherwise construct a provenance? Why worry about history as long as I fall in love with an object that I truly desire? And if the story about it is appealing, so much the better.

What if the provenance reads: acquired on the Paris art market, 1977? What is the art market? That is not a person with a phone number and an address. It is impossible to verify. But it is plausible because we know that the object transited through the City of Lights. Hence, we have an unverifiable geographical marker that places the object in a fuzzy spatio-temporal relationship with a known location called Paris, France, in 1977.

“not fully documented”:

Should you be distressed by the fact that there are no documents or very few to justify the past travails of the object as it passed through multiple sets of hands, crossing deserts, seas, and oceans, only to land in a safe harbor within the Western Hemisphere?

“A partially-documented history does not necessarily indicate fresh looting or illegal export. Even objects that entirely lack history are also not necessarily smuggled or looted.”

Agreed, but who said anything about looting and illegal exports? A customs officer should know the difference between a forged certificate of ownership and one that is authentic. That’s a big “should.” What if a nice gentleman working in the foreign affairs ministry of a source country is only too obliging and produces the necessary forms that allow illegally extracted objects to leave his country in exchange for unspecified favors or to please an even more corrupt senior official? How many officials are trained to tease out the anomalies of documentation produced by exporters of antiquities and works or objects of art, especially when those objects circulate through one, two, maybe three intermediaries in as many countries before landing in a Western market eager to absorb the objects? Should I be suspicious just because there are only two names in a provenance for an object that is three thousand years old which came from a continent far away from where I am, produced by members of a culture that no longer exists? Methinks the answer is yes. Multi-source due diligence would attenuate and greatly reduce the risk of being snookered, taken in, by dubious documentation.

“The demand for documented provenance is a relatively recent phenomenon and many owners simply failed to keep records of their objects, which they treated like other household possessions.”

I agree with Mr. Pearlstein.

In the ideal world, anyone buying art or antiquities or both should request full documentation for their purchases to justify title and licit ownership, just in case that, in the future, anyone accuses this purchaser of being party to a theft. The past three decades have signaled a major cultural shift in the way that art objects and antiquities are traded, displayed, and exchanged, especially in the so-called “market countries” [read, those in Western Europe, and increasingly, in the wealthy pockets of Asia] to borrow the phraseology of Mr. Pearlstein and the CPRI. The fact that requests for documentation constitute a “recent phenomenon” should tell us something about how art and antiquities are purchased even to this day. It has taken two world wars, the deaths of tens of millions of civilians and combatants, the plunder of dozens of nations on three continents to awaken collectors, dealers, and museums to the notion that perhaps the legal and ethical fallout of their indifference to blood-soaked provenances might not be viewed as kindly nowadays as they had been when “might made right” and “to the victors went the spoils” were the ruling mantras of the global art market and its defenders.

So, yes, it is only recently that documentation and more fleshed-out provenances have become ‘de rigueur’ in the international art and antiquities trade.

“Nevertheless, potential penalties for the unwitting purchaser of smuggled or stolen objects include civil forfeiture (for which even bona fide purchasers are rarely compensated), and, for those who knew, or in retrospect should have known, jail.”

I stumbled on “The unwitting purchaser”.

One of the great myths perpetrated by the art and museum worlds has been the martyrdom of the Innocents, who acquired objects innocently, unwittingly, thinking that they had clean title to those objects, from people who lied and misrepresented their origins and histories.

Unwitting! Here again, one must pause and wonder: the “prudent purchaser”, once she believes a provenance to be “plausible” should go ahead and purchase the object of her dreams. God forbid that, like a damsel in distress with no knight in armor around to save her, she should be the unwitting party to a sleazy plot aimed at unloading looted, smuggled, plundered objects on the art market! Even worse, she is acquiring them from reputable art houses!!

What can she do? How could she have known? Well, for one, her education and upbringing should have led her to ask questions first and plunk down her money later. The unwitting victims, the innocents, wallow in their own naïve silliness. How simple! Well, if they are innocent, who’s the guilty party?

And now for an abrupt conclusion to this deconstructive exercise.

The good news is that prudence, characterized by multi-source due diligence, an inquisitive eye, a critical mindset and an acquired immunity to pedigree, titles, and diplomas, will produce its fair share of just rewards. Just don’t drink the koolade and do not believe everything that you are told.

Trust your gut. If the provenance is non-existent, get a second and third opinion, the way we would if you disliked the initial diagnosis for a medical condition. No harm in it. After all, you are the consumer and you are the one who is about to spend a fair amount of money on an object that might not be what it purports to be and comes from where you are told it does.

If none of that matters to you, I cannot help you and God be with you.

"Portrait of Greta Moll," by Henri Matisse

Portrait of Greta Moll

by Marc Masurovsky

[Editor's note and caveat: this article brings together the major articles which appeared in the international press concerning the restitution claim filed against the National Gallery of London by the heirs of Greta Moll.  If there are any misrepresentations of the facts, I assume full responsibility for them. The purpose of this article is to understand and raise questions about the itinerary of the painting before it reached the United States in 1949.  Some of the questions may seem self-evident or unnecessary but they are designed to flesh out possible explanations for the various twists and turns that the story of this Matisse painting borrowed especially between 1945 and 1949.]

In September 2016, the heirs of Oskar and Margarete "Greta" Moll, two German artists who had been persecuted by the Nazis, filed a lawsuit demanding the restitution of a “Portrait of Greta Moll,” which Henri Matisse had painted in 1908. The Molls had owned one of the most important German collections of paintings by Henri Matisse in the years preceding Nazi rule.  

The defendant in this case is the National Gallery of London. Greta’s husband, Oskar Moll, had been one of the early victims of Nazi purges in the academic, cultural and artistic world. The Nazi regime viewed their work as “degenerate” and Greta Moll’s sculptures were included in the now infamous 1937 Munich exhibit, the sole purpose of which was to debase the work of countless modern artists, Jewish and not. 

In 1944, after their house was destroyed,  the Molls sought refuge in the suburbs of Berlin so as to avoid the punishing air raids conducted by Allied bombers.

After the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich on May 8, 1945, the Molls found themselves in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Soviet “cultural policy” in liberated Berlin included the forced removal of whatever cultural and artistic objects and transferring to the Soviet Union, manu militari. Soviet military officials also conducted their own version of purges of “degenerate” art. The so-called Trophy Brigades helped implement this removal policy. Red Army troops “liberated” thousands of objects belonging to Berlin museums and to private collectors from storage facilities in the areas of Berlin that they had overrun. They organized the transfer of those objects to Soviet-run depots deep inside their zone of occupation for ultimate transport to the Soviet Union.

Oskar Moll, courtesy of artnet

In 1947, the Moll family decided to move out of the Soviet sector of Berlin while they still had a chance to. Their designated destination: Wales, where one of their daughters resided. Meanwhile, Oskar Moll died on 14 August 1947 in Berlin. Greta became the designated heiress to the portrait that Matisse had produced of her decades before. Some reports have characterized the painting as the “family’s only remaining asset.” The same reports portrayed Greta as living in fear of an export ban, which could only have been imposed by the Soviet military authorities. To forestall such an eventuality, she recruited Gertrud Djamarani, one of her husband’s former students, to “smuggle the painting" to Zurich and drop it off for safekeeping with a local art dealer, Heidi Vollmöller, the daughter of a wealthy textile executive. She ran a gallery and an auction house in Zurich.  The gallery has had a strong presence on the antiquities market.

"Greta" and Oskar Moll

Another report suggests that, for whatever reasons Greta might have conjured, “the painting was in danger.” This fear might have been prompted by prevailing Soviet cultural edicts severely restricting in their zone the ability of destitute individuals trapped in their zone to raise money or transfer their assets out of the Soviet sector. Artforum goes even further and argues that Greta Moll feared thefts and misdeeds by Allied troops, although if she was in the Soviet sector, she only had the Red Army or Soviet officials to fear, not the Western Allies.

Heidi Vollmoller

There is no sense in speculating why Greta Moll recruited Ms. Djamarani as the temporary custodian of the Matisse portrait. In any event, Ms. Djamarani made her way out of the Soviet Zone of Occupation with the Matisse painting and was able to cross the German-Swiss border with it. Impressive!

The story of the Matisse painting becomes a bit messy once the painting and its custodian enter Switzerland.

Reminder: The Second World War ended in May 1945 in the European Theater and in August 1945 in the Asian theater. Europe was officially liberated. There were no more Axis-sanctioned acts of plunder, no more confiscations by Nazi authorities. If there were seizures and confiscations, they were driven by other considerations at the hands of post-war authorities. The “Portrait of Greta Moll” was not confiscated by the Nazis. The Moll family was able to protect it throughout the entire National Socialist era, no small feat. Two years elapsed between the unconditional surrender of the Third Reich and Greta Moll’s transfer for safekeeping of the painting to Gertrud Djamarani and ultimately to the care of an art dealer, Heidi Vollmöller. Was the latter aware of Frau Moll’s intentions? Did she expect delivery of the painting with Gertrud Djamarani acting basically as a courier? Unclear.

Most press accounts confirm that Ms. Djamarani ran out of money in Switzerland. It’s not clear either how long or how quickly it took her to become destitute, how badly she needed money to begin with. Switzerland has always been and remains even today an expensive place in which to survive, especially in an opulent city like Zurich. Oskar Moll’s former student hung on to the painting long enough to perceive it as a valuable asset from which she could derive some badly needed funds. A highly unethical and, yes, criminal posture to adopt, but in the disastrous follow-up to WWII, millions of men, women, and children found themselves pauperized, doing anything to earn a living. Theft and other crimes as well were common occurrences across war-devastated Europe. Black markets operated on high octane, especially in cities like Munich and Berlin. Everything was available for a price as long as someone had money to pay for what you offered. Swiss art dealers benefited exponentially from such financial and societal distress, eager to buy low and sell high. That, however, does not excuse Ms. Djamarani’s behavior because it was plainly illegal.

Gertrud Djamarani used the Matisse painting which belonged to Greta Moll in order to obtain financial assistance from Heidi Vollmöller. . In doing so, did she pass herself off as the owner of the Matisse painting? Unclear. This also tells us that Ms. Vollmöller.  ight not have known that the painting’s true owner was Greta Moll and if she did, she became party to the crime. Moreover, she did not question the fact that an impoverished student coming from Berlin would be the proud owner of a well-executed portrait of a woman by Henri Matisse. There were plenty of dealers and collectors in Switzerland who would have given Ms. Djamarani good money for the painting and, more importantly, who would not have raised the origin of the painting as a precondition for a transaction. So, why did Ms. Djamarani focus solely on Ms. Vollmöller to obtain assistance? We don’t know. One other detail is worth considering at least for historical reasons. By 1947, after having been pummeled by the Western Allies since 1944 over their handling of looted assets belonging to Jewish victims, the Swiss authorities were especially vigilant to seize movable assets like the Matisse portrait in Ms. Djamarani’s possession which might enter Swiss territory by plane, train, road, or even on foot. How did Ms. Djamarani make it across the German-Swiss border without a detailed inspection of her belongings? If I had been her, I would have been sweating buckets.

We can all agree that Gertrud Djamarani’s behavior upon her arrival in Switzerland, was nothing short of problematic as well as that of the Zurich art dealer to whom she was supposed to entrust the painting. She used it as a vehicle to raise money for herself which probably financed her exit out of Switzerland.

Gertrud Djamarani ended up somewhere in the Near East, not the most peaceful region of the post-1945 world to relocate in especially as French and British colonial dominions were cracking at the seams amid generalized unrest fueled by rising pan-arab nationalistic fervor and Jewish desires to control their own territory and carve out a nation out of Palestine.

Heidi Vollmöller sold the painting without the consent of its rightful owner, Greta Moll. In 1949, the Matisse portrait reached the New York art market and ended up at the Knoedler gallery. From there it entered the collection of a Texan oil baron, then returned to Switzerland and finally ended up in London with Lefebvre which sold it to the National Gallery in 1979, two years after the death of Greta Moll.

In 2011, we learn that The National Gallery first became aware of the Moll heirs’ “interest in the painting” through an exchange of letters involving legal representatives.

We agree with Greta Moll’s heirs “that [the painting] was sold without permission after [Greta Moll] sent it to Switzerland for safekeeping.“ But the facts as they have been presented in the international press do not lead anyone to deduce that this case can even be considered as a “World War II art restitution case”.

David Rowland, a New York attorney involved in many Nazi-looted art cases and who represents the interests of the Moll heirs declared:

"We think that it is improper for public museums to hold misappropriated/stolen artworks in their collections and that there is both an ethical and legal obligation to return misappropriated/stolen art to its original owners and their heirs. The same principle of course applies even more so to art lost in the Nazi era and its immediate aftermath, as is the case here.”

Note: 

The photo of Greta and Oskar Moll comes from the following website:

http://www.silesiancollections.eu/Kolekcje/Moll-Margarete-1884-1977-Moll-Oskar-1875-1947-Breslau

The image of Heidi Vollmöller is a portrait produced by Hans Purrmann. According to the website "the athenaeum-org", only the thumbnail can be reproduced. For more information, see

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=233742

"The Actor," by Pablo Picaso

by Marc Masurovsky

The Actor, by Pablo Picasso.

Saturday morning, 1 October 2016, brought news of a restitution claim filed by the Leffmann family heirs against the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a painting by Pablo Picasso, “The Actor”, which is estimated to be worth 100 million dollars. According to Graham Bowley, writing for the New York Times, the Leffmann family left Cologne in 1937 and sought refuge in Italy, paying for their exit in part with the sale of the Picasso painting. The Leffmanns ended up in their new land of refuge, Brazil, not unlike other Jewish families plundered by the Nazis, like Hugo Simon.

The Leffmanns sold the painting to the Perls Gallery and Paul Rosenberg, both in Paris. At the time of the Leffmann sale, Hugo Perls  lived in Paris where he had emigrated in 1931, fearful of the inevitable rise to power of the Nazi movement in Germany. The Kaete Perls Gallery moved from Berlin to Paris. Hugo and his wife, Kaete, separated.  According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kaethe Perls Gallery acted as an agent in the sale of the Leffmann Picasso in 1937. It indicates Hugo Perls, her estranged husband, and Paul Rosenberg, a renown Paris art dealer and collector, as jointly investing in the painting. 

Hugo and Kaete Perls, by Edvard Munch

Thelma Chrysler Foy

According to the New York Daily News, Cesar Monge de Hauke paid 12,000 dollars for “The Actor” but the journalist, Victoria Bekiempis, does not explain to whom de Hauke paid the sum and for whom he allegedly acquired the Picasso painting. One might assume that he had acted as a go-between for Knoedlers. At the time of the transaction, de Hauke was associated with Germain Seligmann, who operated a successful art gallery in New York. In the summer of 1940, de Hauke decided to strike gold on the wartime Paris art market by packing up his belongings in New York and moving to German-occupied Paris. However, this fact has no relevance on the bearings of the Leffmann claim.  The Metropolitan Museum's provenance of "The Actor" does not mention de Hauke.

In another odd journalistic claim regarding the history of the Leffmann family's escape to freedom, Reuters reported that the sale of the painting was to flee Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy in June 1938! No kidding.. Should that be true, it would be odd since the racial anti-Jewish laws were not enacted until November 1938. Odd how history can get rewritten so quickly and in such a fangled manner!

Thelma Chrysler Foy, a daughter of Walter Chrysler, acquired “The Actor” through Knoedlers in 1941 and donated the Picasso work to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1952.

Of interest to us is the involvement of Perls and Rosenberg in the joint acquisition of the Leffmann painting in Paris. Whatever assets Hugo Perls had left behind in Germany, the Nazi government confiscated them. Paul Rosenberg, on the other hand, suffered the same fate two years later, fleeing the German blitzkrieg against Western Europe and seeking refuge in New York where many European Jewish collectors and dealers had also resumed their lives. His entire art collection was seized and many of its contents redistributed with glee among art dealers, brokers and collectors in the Paris art market.

One has to wonder in retrospect and with twenty-twenty hindsight—maybe unfairly—how much Rosenberg and Perls knew of the duress sales in Nazi Germany, how they viewed the acquisition of assets owned by persecuted Jews—ethical or unethical?—or did they simply look at the acquisition of “The Actor” by Pablo Picasso as just another business opportunity?

The post-WWII era inaugurated historic claims for restitution by men and women of Jewish descent, many of whom owned art collections, major or minor, who had been persecuted and plundered during the commission of an act of genocide. The claims were unprecedented in modern history but so was the crime which provoked them. It turns out that a number of post-war Jewish claimants acquired, wittingly or unwittingly, on the German art market, in Switzerland, or in the post-1945 era works and objects of art confiscated from other Jews or sold under duress to finance their escapes by paying excessive levies demanded by the Nazi government as toll fees to allow Jews to leave the Reich.

As is the case today, provenance seemed to have not counted for much in the decision to acquire plundered or confiscated objects. Ironies of history or simply standard operating procedure in the art market, regardless of who and what you are?

The emphasis placed on Perls and Rosenberg in the post-duress sale ownership history of the Leffmann Picasso is to underscore the fact that the art market and those involved in it often set history aside in order to acquire what they covet as part of their overall business activities. This was especially true in the inter-war period, the wartime years, and the decades following the end of WWII and the Holocaust.

This behavior is similar to what we experience nowadays with Native American artifacts looted from religious and sacred sites throughout North America and the acquisition of antiquities known to emerge from conflict zones in the Mideast and elsewhere.

No one is immune to such behavior, not even those who were persecuted.

The New York law firm of Herrick Feinstein is representing the Leffmann family in its bid to recover the Picasso painting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An opinionated exercise

by Marc Masurovsky

Disclaimer: This deconstructive undertaking is not meant to judge a person’s good will, intentions, or motives, nor a person’s qualifications, merits, and contributions. Its purpose is to show how words can be interpreted, read, and critiqued.

Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is pure coincidence.

The exercise consists in an imaginary dialogue between a provenance research specialist --MJ—and an attorney with a long list of clients in the art and antiquities world--AB.

AB: Thanks for inviting me. Nice to see you again. What are we talking about?

MJ: The buying and selling of art and antiquities, due diligence issues, provenance research.

AB: OK, where shall we start?

MJ: First of all, I’d like to say that, in general, research—provenance research as it were—into the ownership history of an object coming up for sale or to be exhibited, or traded on the international art market, is a necessity. Every object has a history of ownership, the starting point of which should be its maker or creator.

AB: That might be tough with antiquities, due to the immense passage of time, the circumstances under which the object was found, its physical condition, and the context of its location. Wouldn’t you agree?

MJ: Sure, I get that. The research will quickly lead to legal issues about title. You, as a lawyer, should know that.

AB: You don’t have to preach to me. In any event, I always caution my clients to be prudent in their purchases of art objects…

MJ: Prudent? What does prudence actually mean? How is prudence exercised? Is prudence a code word for “due diligence”? If so, why couldn’t you just talk about “due diligence”?

AB: We can discuss that later. In my professional experience, objects that have a plausible history of ownership and origin can be purchased without too many questions.

MJ: Let’s take a step back here.

Have you been following the recent Knoedler forgery trial?

AB: Yes.

MJ: Well, it’s a cautionary tale. The sale of a painting by Mark Rothko which was not a Rothko, as you know, contributed to the fatal demise of an otherwise eminent art establishment, Knoedler’s. Multiple warning flags were raised by appraisers, art historians, dealers. They went unheeded. Knoedler and its president dismissed them for reasons that must be more complex than simple greed. Nevertheless, the gallery invested in a plausible history constructed around the pseudo-Rothko painting designed to cover up a very murky provenance that could not withstand scrutiny.

AB: Do I have to listen to this?

MJ: Be patient, chill.

You know the expression: If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, and quacks a duck, it might just be a duck or we can pass it off as a duck. Similarly if a painting looks like a Rothko, “radiates” like a Rothko, and is described as a Rothko, then it might just be a Rothko and we can sell it as a Rothko. Sure… the word “plausible” sends shivers down my spine and reminds me of the Nixon years when “plausible deniability” became the preferred line of defense of those who engineered the Watergate scandal.

AB: Hey, I am a Republican.

MJ: I’m not. So there…and your candidate ended up resigning in shame.

AB: [inaudible sound of exasperation]

MJ: Let me ask you: if the history of ownership of an object is “plausible,” should you buy the object even if all you have in the provenance is “John Smith, 1969” and the object itself is older than Methuselah?

If there’s only one name in the provenance, what makes it plausible? The reputation of a person involved in the transaction? Would you accept as “plausible” a one-name provenance as long as an established international art historical authority, a senior curator in a distinguished museum, a person with a wall covered with PhDs, awards and other marks of distinction, a highly-regarded collector/dealer vouched for it?

AB: If the object is of exceptional quality, I am willing to forsake strict provenance requirements. People are human. And they should be able to acquire what they love.

MJ: Errare humanum est.

AB: What’s your point?

MJ: You know what I am talking about. it is this misguided, but very human, belief in pedigree which warps our instincts, our common sense, our logical reasoning and our critical thinking faculties. In the case of Knoedler, the unfortunate buyer-the De Soles family-- found the Knoedler story “plausible” about the Rothko’s bizarre history and went home with a fake painting.

AB: I see what you mean. Maybe plausible was not a judicious choice of words. [He laughs!] Fictions are plausible, too. My clients all love good stories. After all, a fictional account is partly anchored in real life, even if it is twisted. It is simple enough to embellish or otherwise construct a provenance. Why worry about history as long as they fall in love with an object that they truly desire? And if the story about the object is appealing enough, so much the better. It adds value to the object. Everybody’s happy.

MJ: Funny man…

What if the provenance reads: acquired on the Paris art market, 1977? What art market? Is it a person with a phone number and an address? Obviously not, impossible to verify. But it is plausible because we know that the object transited through the City of Lights. Hence, we have an unverifiable geographical marker that places the object that your client is lusting over in a fuzzy spatio-temporal relationship with a known location called Paris, France, in 1977.

AB: Who cares? It’s the object that people care about. If it went through Paris, fine.

MJ: Are you serious? And by the way, didn’t you say something about lack of documentation not being an obstacle to purchase?

AB: I may have. But that’s all part of plausibility. Again, that word. [Snicker]

MJ: Aren’t you distressed by the fact that there are no documents or very few to justify the past travails of many objects as they passed through multiple sets of hands, crossing deserts, seas, and oceans, only to land in a safe harbor within the Western Hemisphere?

AB: I never lose sleep over absence of documents. It happens all the time and there are ways of explaining those gaps.

MJ: You are something else…

AB: That’s why they pay me. To allow them to buy objects with partially-documented histories or no histories at all. Realize that the absence of information does not imply acts of looting or an illegal export. Not every object with a lack of provenance is stolen property.

MJ: I’ll grant you that much. However, a customs officer should know the difference between a forged certificate of ownership and one that is authentic. That’s a big “should.” What if a nice gentleman working in the foreign affairs ministry of a source country is only too obliging and produces the necessary forms that allow illegally extracted objects to leave his country in exchange for unspecified favors or to please an even more corrupt senior official? How many officials are trained to tease out the anomalies of documentation produced by exporters of antiquities and works or objects of art, especially when those objects circulate through one, two, maybe three intermediaries in as many countries before landing in a Western market eager to absorb the objects? Should I be suspicious just because there are only two names in a provenance for an object that is three thousand years old which came from a continent far away from where I am, produced by members of a culture that no longer exists? Methinks the answer is yes. Multi-source due diligence would attenuate and greatly reduce the risk of being snookered, taken in, by dubious documentation.

AB: Multi-source due diligence. That sounds like a chant from a religious cult. Come on, one call to the Art Loss Register or to Art Recovery Group and that’s all that is necessary. Let them do all the checks. That’s why we pay them the big bucks.

MJ: Multi-source is the solution. Deep down in your gut, you know that.There’s no way around it. This is where you and I part ways. I don’t care how many sources are checked online and offline, people are called, agencies are consulted, as long as you can guarantee that an object is not stolen. Isn’t that worth something to you? Where are your ethics?

AB: Don’t talk to me about ethics, ok? In the ideal world, anyone buying art or antiquities or both should request full documentation for their purchases to justify title and licit ownership. I am fully aware of that. I don’t want my clients to stand accused of being party to a theft. But it doesn’t happen that way in most cases. I get paid, in part, to clean up the messes and make sure that my clients don’t end up behind bars, paying huge fines and forfeiting their property.

You’ll agree with me, though, that these past few decades have signaled a major cultural shift in the way that art objects and antiquities are traded, especially in market countries [read, those in Western Europe, and increasingly, in the wealthy pockets of Asia.]

MJ: True…

AB: Requests for documentation are a new thing. Even auction houses have to comply. It wasn’t that way all the time. What does that tell you?

MJ: Hmm. It tells me how art and antiquities are purchased even to this day. Back to my soap box if I may.

AB: Go for it. We’ve got some time left.

MJ: Thanks. It has taken two world wars, the deaths of tens of millions of civilians and combatants, the plunder of dozens of nations on three continents to awaken collectors, dealers, and museums to the notion that perhaps the legal and ethical fallout of their indifference to blood-soaked provenances might not be viewed as kindly nowadays as they had been when “might made right” and “to the victors went the spoils” were the ruling mantras of the global art market and its defenders.

So, yes, it is only recently that documentation and more fleshed-out provenances have become ‘de rigueur’ in the international art and antiquities trade.

AB: Well, as long as I can keep my clients one step ahead of the US Attorney’s office or ICE agents. After all, more often than not, they are the unwitting victims of unscrupulous middlemen. They’re innocents.

MJ: You can’t be serious. Do you still believe in that nonsense?

AB: Hey!

MJ: Let me finish. One of the great myths perpetrated by the art and museum worlds has been the martyrdom of the Innocents—that would make for a nice, sweeping, classical painting entitled “The Massacre of the Innocents”—Those who acquired objects innocently, unwittingly, thinking that they had clean title to those objects, from people who lied and misrepresented their origins and histories. Unwitting? My you-know-what.

AB: What is your problem? I thought we were starting to agree.

MJ: Imagine. Your client believes a provenance to be “plausible” and goes ahead with the purchase of the object of her dreams. God forbid that, like a damsel in distress with no knight in armor around to save her—that would be you!--

AB: Thanks.

MJ: My pleasure… she should be the unwitting party to a sleazy plot aimed at unloading looted, smuggled, plundered objects on the art market! Even worse, she is acquiring them from reputable art houses!! What can she do? How could she have known? Well, for one, her education and upbringing should have led her to ask questions first and plunk down her money later. The unwitting victims, the innocents, wallow in their own naïve silliness. How simple! Well, if they are innocent, who’s the guilty party?

AB: What’s your point exactly? Or did I miss something?

MJ: My point is simply that prudence, characterized by multi-source due diligence, an inquisitive eye, a critical mindset and an acquired immunity to pedigree, titles, and diplomas, will produce its fair share of just rewards. Can you tell your clients not to drink the koolade and not to believe everything that they are told.

AB: Are we done?

MJ: One more thing. My advice to your clients is: Trust your gut. If the provenance is non-existent, get a second and third opinion, the way we would if we disliked the initial diagnosis for a medical condition. No harm in it. After all, we are the consumers and we are about to spend a fair amount of money on an object that might not be what it purports to be nor come from where we were told it does.

Can you live with that?

AB: I’d have to think about it.

MJ: You know how it is. It’s your choice. If none of this matters to you, God be with you.

AB: There you go again…[Smile] See you next time.

MJ: Next time, it’s on you. Single malt all around.



AB: I’m good if you are.

The Knoedler forgery scam trial is now on

by Marc Masurovsky
Twelve years ago, the now defunct elite New York art gallery, Knoedler and Company, which used to cater to the aristocracy of Europe and nababs from countries worldwide, sold a painting attributed to Mark Rothko which, in reality, had been produced by a Chinese artist living in very modest circumstances in Queens. His paymaster was Glafira Rosales, a self-styled art dealer and collector based in Long Island. All told, Knoedler under the leadership of Ann Freedman, its last president, sold more than 30 paintings which Ms. Rosales offered for consignment to Knoedler as products signed by “the titans of Abstract Expressionism” allegedly coming from a private Swiss collection. All told, 63 million dollars changed hands to Ms. Rosales’ benefit. The Chinese painter who produced the forgeries barely received more than a few thousand dollars for the knock-offs that he so expertly created. He has since high-tailed it back to China. 

Glafira Rosales in front a "Jackson Pollock" painting

The honorable New York gallery was forced to close its doors after being asked to refund millions of dollars to irate collectors who were incensed that the gallery had bamboozled them into thinking that they were investing in major modern paintings. 

Ann Feedman

Why did such a reputable gallery ignore a report produced by an independent organization, the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR), which was unable and unwilling to validate the authenticity of one of the Pollocks sold by Knoedler?  Had Ms. Freedman given more credence to the report and seen a light bulb go off, perhaps she might still have kept her clients and averted the shutdown of the gallery.

How do forged “masterpieces” signed by iconic members of the Abstract Expressionist pantheon withstand scrutiny as authentic pieces? How is it that Ann Freedman, Knoedler’s last president of Knoedler, fell for this elaborate scam? Arrogance might play a role in her undoing since, when asked why she did not dig more into the background of Ms. Rosales, she replied that “she doesn’t do that.” Instead, she relies on the advice of art experts. So much for provenance research. If she did not do it or encourage it, who did, at the ex-Knoedler and Company? The absence of due diligence checks and basic provenance research does lie at the core of the case against Knoedler. Had due diligence practices been put into place and applied to Ms. Rosales and her magic trove of Abstract masterpieces, many of which were signed by Pollock, could the scandal have been minimized and even stopped dead in its tracks, Rosales cuffed and jailed for running a sham operation and would Knoedler still be open today? Should a liability verdict be rendered, it might reaffirm the necessity of due diligence checks and provenance research as checkpoints against being scammed and snookered into acquiring dubious cultural assets.

The art world feeds on its own self-imposed practice of “omerta’, a Mafia code of silence, to sustain, maintain, uphold reputations and most importantly, value. It is a very competitive and ruthless milieu where one’s word can be worth gold or tin plate in appraising, authenticating and vouching for the importance and genuineness of an object offered for sale. It is all about producing a constant supply of high quality works for ever hungry and demanding, wealthy individuals, who can stop taking your calls in a second if you do not provide what they want. Or so it appears. Or so one believes.

Image is vital in this world. A woman like Ms. Freedman does not exactly rise to “queen” status but she is a highly-regarded dealmaker and connoisseur in the international art world. Did she finally break down and get ahead of herself, embarrassed about being caught up in a trap so cunningly set up by Ms. Rosales and playing double or nothing, opted to go “all the way”, by acquiring for herself some of the fakes? Perhaps to reassure her nervous clientele?

We’ll soon find out. Self-interest and narcissistic, patronizing behavior are characteristic features of the high-end segment of the global art world much like in the rarified air that one breathes in executive offices of high-performance hedge funds and brokerage firms and global investment firms, as well as auction house executives who cater to their clients’ every whim. Looking upstream to meet the autocratic needs of an ever-expanding super class of excessively wealthy people worldwide is a challenging task no doubt. Who knows where these paintings end up, in some redoubt deep in the hills of Kazakhstan or a dacha outside of Moscow or better still in the nouveau super-riche compound of a freshly-minted Chinese billionaire?

After all, the idea is to make money, even more money, amass, amass, and amass, buy, buy, buy until there is nothing left to buy and boredom sets in. Art is simply an instrumentality in the perplexing game that the super-wealthy play. Getting caught is simply part of the process. There is very little appreciation for the art as long as experts like Ms. Freedman and her equally high-priced experts can convince these moguls to part with their money because they are helping to sustain an illusion of what the cutting edge of culture is all about, as defined by these “experts.”

Whether the art is any good is for you to decide. Meanwhile, tens of billions of dollars and euros are exchanged each year to sustain this fantasy called the global art market.

The trial of Ann Freedman and Knoedler does allow us to peek into their prefabricated, platinum-plated reality, pockmarked by high fashion events, multimillion dollar parties in exotic remote islands, private estates, and well-protected luxury buildings scattered around the world.

If these are the people who actually end up possessing looted art and antiquities, we will have an incredibly difficult time wresting those objects from them. Their sense of morality does not extend to ceding title to expensive conversation pieces called “art," looted or not.

Russian billionaires