Object information and information on the back of the Drawing
The restitution application concerns the drawing Two Women’s Heads, a pen and brown ink drawing dated 1400-1500 by an anonymous artist. The Drawing is part of the Dutch National Art Collection and is currently in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam under inventory number RP-T-1947-25.
Provenance of the Drawing
It has been established that the Drawing was part of the Feldmann Collection. The last known owner prior to Arthur Feldmann was Adalbert Freiherr von Lanna of Prague. A part of his collection, including the Drawing, went to auction on 22 May 1911 at Rudolph Lepke in Berlin. It is not known when Arthur Feldmann acquired the Drawing because his records were confiscated by the Gestapo. The first indication that the Drawing was in Arthur Feldmann’s collection was during the auction at H. Gilhofer & H. Ranschburg in Lucerne in 1934.
H. Gilhofer & H. Ranschburg auction, Lucerne 1934
As a result of the deteriorating economic conditions during the nineteen-thirties, Arthur Feldmann had to put up part of his art collection for sale by auction. On 28 June 1934, a selection of works from the Feldmann Collection were offered for sale at an auction held by at H. Gilhofer & H. Ranschburg in Lucerne, Switzerland. A depiction of the Drawing features prominently on the front of the auction catalogue. The work described in the catalogue under number 177 as ‘Winkler Master’ can be identified as the Drawing, which was part of the Feldmann Collection. A handwritten annotation in the catalogue reveals that the Drawing remained unsold during the auction sale. There is no reason to assume that the Drawing did not belong to the group of drawings that was returned to Feldmann after the sale.
The Drawing between 1934 and 1946
No documentation was found during the investigation about the Drawing between 1934 and 1946. It is therefore also not known when the Drawing ceased being in the possession of Arthur Feldmann. According to statements by Karl Feldmann in 1966 and Hans Hofmann, a nephew of Gisela Feldmann-Hofmann, in 2000, after the 1934 sale Arthur Feldmann supposedly sold no further drawings and also did not send any drawings abroad. According to Karl Feldmann, Arthur Feldmann even expanded his collection. Other artworks from the Feldmann Collection did turn up between 1934 and 1947, however. Documentation has revealed that drawings from the Feldmann Collection changed hands after the 1934 sale too. There are indications that the married couple Hilda and Victor Haida (New York) purchased seven drawings from the Feldmann Collection shortly after the 1934 sale, or in any event during the mid-nineteen-thirties. Christie’s auction house stated, among other things, the following about the Haidas and their connection with Brno and Feldmann Collection:
It was on one of these visits that the Haidas acquired the Rembrandt Strolling Couple, with six other drawings, which came from the collection of Brno lawyer Dr Arthur Feldmann. The drawings are recorded in the Haida’s collection in New York from the mid-1930s. …. The family did not return to Europe until 1947.
The Drawing, however, was not among the aforementioned seven drawings.
It is also known that the Drawing was not among the sheets that were put under the management of the Moravian Museum in Brno in 1942. There is no monogram or inventory number of the Moravian Museum on the back of the Drawing. Furthermore, all the drawings sold to the Moravian Museum by Rosorius were restituted to the heirs of Arthur Feldmann in 2003.
The Drawing was also not among the 32 works in regard to which Karl Feldmann requested permission to export prior to his escape to Palestine with Otto Feldmann.
The Drawing from 1946
Sale at Sotheby & Co, London 1946
The law firm Bennett & Bennett submitted 95 drawings to a sale on 16 October 1946 at Sotheby’s & Co in London. These drawings had come from the Feldmann Collection. The drawings were included in the sale catalogue in lots 40 to 88. The law firm Bennett & Bennett was registered in the Channel Islands. Research has not revealed the names of the people who were behind this law firm, or on behalf of whom Bennett & Bennett put lot numbers 40 to 88 into the auction. Research has shown, however, that the Channel Islands, occupied by the Nazis – during and also after the war – were known as a transit point for looted art.
Although it cannot be ruled out that the Drawing was among the drawings put up for sale, the probability is low. Of the 48 lots designated as ‘The Property of a Collector’, there are 28 lots comprising two or more drawings. Not all of the drawings are described individually. Some are designated as ‘and another’ or ‘two others’. It is striking, when studying the different lots, that individual sheets were not grouped together in a random fashion. Groups were defined on the basis of stylistic or geographical characteristics or genre. The Drawing cannot be identified as one of the described works and furthermore none of the groups of sheets correspond to it in terms of style, geography or genre. It is, however, notable that several drawings from the Feldmann Collection turned up in London separately and around the same period.
Hans Calmann, William Redford and the purchase of the Drawing by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 1947
At the end of 1946, the Drawing was noticed by Professor I.Q. van Regteren Altena in London at the premises of the leading Jewish art dealer Hans Maximilian Calmann (1899-1982). In 1937 Calmann and his family fled Nazi Germany and settled in London. He opened his first shop at 42 St James’s Place.
Some time later Calmann opened a larger shop at 15 Davies Street. Calmann rented this space, which was on the first floor, from the antiques and art dealer Gerald Kerin (1882-1976), who had a shop of his own on the ground floor.
In January 1947, only a few months after the sale at Sotheby’s in London, Calmann sent the Drawing, together with two other sheets, to the Museum. He did this following a request from Ms L.C.J. Frerichs of the Rijksmuseum Print Room to examine them. After the Museum had decided to buy the Drawing, the acquisition was not completed until October 1947, when the agreed purchase price of 200 pounds sterling was paid to Calmann. Calmann described the maker of the Drawing in both his cash book and his inventory book as ‘Winkler Master’ – a reference to the 1934 Gilhofer & Ranschburg sale catalogue. In his file on the Drawing, Calmann recorded W. Retford’ (with a ‘t’) as the drawing’s previous owner. This was probably William Redford (with a ‘d’), whom Calmann mentioned in his 1976 memoires.
William (Bill) McIntyre Redford (1912-2004) was a South African who had served in the British army during the Second World War. After the war he started working for Gerald Kerin, the antiques and art dealer from whom Calmann rented his shop. Redford became a partner in Kerin’s business within a year and worked mainly in the Mount Street branch, just around the corner from Calmann. In his memoires, Calmann refers to a number of business transactions with Redford relating to drawings. The name ‘Retford’ also occurs several times in Calmann’s business records. It is possible that Calmann sold the Drawing to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam on Redford’s instructions. This explains why Calmann did not include the work in his records until after the transaction had been completed. It is not clear how the Drawing came into Redford’s possession.
Nothing was found in the business archives of William Redford and Gerald Kerin to indicate who the Drawing’s owner was before the W. Retford referred to in Calmann’s records.
The Drawing has remained in the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam since 1947. When the Drawing became part of the collection an inventory card was prepared and the Drawing was included in an inventory book. The name Feldmann is not referred to in these sources. The inventory card of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam gives the art dealer H.M. Calmann as the last owner, from whom or on behalf of whom the Museum purchased the Drawing in 1947.