3. Establishing the Facts
The Committee establishes the following facts in this case on the grounds of the investigation into the facts.
The Gosschalk family
Joseph Henri Gosschalk was born in Zwolle on 12 May 1875 to the merchant Henri J. Gosschalk and Seline (Sellie) Polak. He had four younger sisters: Elise, Margaretha, Betsie and Martha. The family was of Jewish descent. The only one of Gosschalk’s four sisters known to have had children was Margaretha. Two of them reached adulthood, Celine Kosturkiewicz (1911-2008) and Helene Kosturkiewicz (1921-1999). One of the current Applicants, DD, is Celine’s daughter. Three of the current Applicants, AA, CC and BB, are the children of Helene.
Gosschalk lived in Bussum and Amsterdam before he was registered as living at Obrechtstraat 227 in The Hague from 1913. He was unmarried and had no biological children, but he did have two foster daughters. One of them, Jeanne Marcelle Courboulay, was born in Rotterdam in 1906. She probably grew up partially in host families and partially with Gosschalk. Gerardina Clasina (Dientje) Hijst, born in 1912 in The Hague, was Gosschalk’s second foster daughter. Dientje was orphaned in 1930. She subsequently lived at various addresses in The Hague and moved in with Gosschalk in May 1938.
Gosschalk was registered as living at Wassenaarse Slag 1b in Wassenaar from August 1945.
Gosschalk as artist, restorer and organizer
Gosschalk was a self-taught artist. He worked as a professional painter and draftsman from around 1912. He specialized in portraits until 1928 and thereafter also in landscapes and cityscapes. He regularly stayed in Germany, Italy and France and usually recorded his impressions of these travels in pen and ink drawings. His work was regularly on view in solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands. The first of these was in Bussum in 1912. A number of Dutch museums have work by him in their collections. Gosschalk also worked as a restorer.
Gosschalk was furthermore well known in professional circles for his great efforts on behalf of artists’ organizations, such as De Onafhankelijken, the Nederlandse Federatie van Beeldende Kunstenaarsverenigingen, the Congres Kunstenaars in Crisis and the Voorzieningsfonds voor Kunstenaars.
Gosschalk as collector and dealer
Gosschalk was a collector and dealer, and he owned many dozens of paintings, drawings and other artworks. He also traded in art. Research in the archive of Museum De Fundatie in Heino revealed that he acquired artworks at a sale at the firm of A. Mak in Dordrecht and Amsterdam in March 1922. He also provided museums with works.
Objects from Gosschalk’s collection could be seen in exhibitions of old art in The Hague (1924, 1926), Chemnitz (1927), Berlin (1927) and elsewhere. In 1928 in the newspaper De Telegraaf the art critic Kasper Niehaus described a visit to Gosschalk’s home in The Hague as a ‘feest van schoonheid en kunst’ [‘celebration of beauty and art’], thanks to the many treasures that were on show. He reported that Gosschalk was primarily interested in ‘de vroeg-Vlaamsche landschapschilderkunst’ [‘early Flemish landscape paintings’] and mentioned works by various old masters.
In February 1933 Gosschalk registered the establishment of the ‘Bureau voor Grafische Kunst’ [‘Graphic Art Bureau’] with effect from 1 March 1933 at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in The Hague. The business was located at Obrechtstraat 227, and it concentrated on ‘Bemiddeling bij opdrachten, uitgave, koop en verkoop van werken van beeldende, speciaal grafische, kunst, en hetzelfde voor eigen rekening. / (Commissiehandel en handel voor zijn rekening)’ [‘Mediation with regard to commissions for, publications about, purchase and sale of works of fine art, especially graphic art, also for its own account. / (Commission trading and trading on its own behalf)’]. Gosschalk was the sole owner.
Gosschalk offered numbers of works for sale during the interwar years. For example, he put a few dozen paintings and other artworks into sales at the A. Mak auction house in Dordrecht in April 1932 and May 1933. There was an exhibition of objects from his own collection in The Hague in 1936-1937.
Gosschalk’s fate during the occupation
Gosschalk suffered as a result of the anti-Jewish measures taken by the occupying forces. In September 1940 there were rumours in the Netherlands that the German administration would start to expropriate Jewish businesses. On 22 October 1940 regulation 189/1940 was promulgated. It stipulated that all Jewish businesses had to register with the Wirtschaftsprüfstelle (Companies Inspectorate) before 30 November 1940. At the very last moment, on 29 November 1940, Gosschalk notified the Chamber of Commerce that his Graphic Art Bureau had closed down in March of that year. Regulation 48/1941 was promulgated over three months later on 12 March 1941. This ‘business Aryanization regulation’ was also known as the ‘Regulation for the removal of Jews from the business community’. On the grounds of this regulation the businesses of Jewish entrepreneurs could be put under the control of and be Aryanized or liquidated by the administrator.
Documentation from the German Entscheidungsstelle (Administration Office), an official body that handled requests from people seeking to have their registration as Jews revised in order to avoid anti-Jewish measures, reveals that in the autumn of 1942 Gosschalk submitted a request to have his registration as a Jew amended on the grounds of his foster parenthood of ‘two people of pure non-Jewish blood, both baptized Catholics’. A letter of November 1942 advised that the request could not be granted. During the winter of 1942-1943 a number of Gosschalk’s acquaintances subsequently made statements in order to underline the importance of his work and to ensure that he would not be deported.
In the end, Gosschalk and his sister Elise were admitted to the Barneveld group, which was interned in Barneveld and Doetinchem starting at the end of 1942. These were people of Jewish descent with influential contacts and an important position in society who were exempted from transportation to Westerbork transit camp. The influx of people to Barneveld was so great in February and March 1943 that, in addition to De Schaffelaar Castle, which already served as accommodation, the nearby country estate De Biezen also started to be used. Gosschalk and his sister arrived during this period. They were interned in De Biezen.
Many people in the Barneveld group brought their household effects to their new address or had them sent later. Gosschalk’s post-war correspondence in the SNK archive reveals that he sent goods, including paintings, to Barneveld. It was not possible during the investigation to establish which works these were. At the end of September 1943 German Ordnungspolizei (uniformed police) took the Barneveld group to Westerbork. Possessions left behind by Barneveld inmates were looted and confiscated. Their property was not safe in Westerbork either.
The Barneveld group had its own barrack in Westerbork and in principle it was exempted from deportation to the death camps. Gosschalk made many drawings of the camp and its immediate vicinity. At the beginning of September 1944 the Barneveld inmates were transported to Theresienstadt concentration and transit camp. The majority of them survived the war there.
Gosschalk’s fate after the occupation
On 3 May 1945 the Nazis handed over control of Theresienstadt to the Red Cross and on 8 May Red Army troops arrived. In case RC 1.156 the Applicants submitted a postcard that Gosschalk wrote to his foster daughter Gerardina Hijst after the liberation of Theresienstadt. In it he described, among other things, his poor physical condition resulting from the deprivation: ‘ik ben nog maar een geraamte met vel er over en kan nauwelijks loopen […]’ [‘I’m nothing more than a skeleton covered with skin, and I can barely walk…’]. He also referred to the theft of his possessions:‘Onze inboedel, al mijn koffers en kleeren ben ik kwijt, alles afgenomen en gestolen. Heb niet meer dan de oude plunje die ik aan heb’ [‘Our household effects, I’ve lost all my luggage and clothes, everything’s been taken and stolen. I’ve nothing more than the old clothes I’m wearing’].
On the postcard Gosschalk mentioned the names of various members of his circle of acquaintances. It emerges from post-war correspondence that Gosschalk had still not recovered, physically and mentally, months and even years after the liberation. He wrote the following to friends in The Hague on a postcard dated 4 October 1945:
Hoewel ik in omvang goed aangekomen ben, schiet ik in lichaamskracht nog steeds te kort, ben zeer snel uitgeput wanneer ik loop, zoodat ik in Den Haag zelfs niet alle dringende dingen heb kunnen behandelen en ook geen middel zag bij je aan te komen; nu de tram weer de heele dag loopt, hoop ik dat dit niet al te lang meer behoeft te wachten. […]
[Although I’ve put on a lot of weight, I’m still not physically strong, and I get exhausted very quickly when I walk, so that I haven’t even been able to sort out all the urgent matters in The Hague and also I’ve had no way of reaching you. Now that the trams are running all day again, I hope that this won’t have to wait too much longer.…]
In 1945 in correspondence with the SNK he wrote that his memory was letting him down:
[…] en heb ik de moeilijkheid dat ook alle gegevens verdwenen zijn en mijn geheugen mij deerlijk in den steek laat. Waar u in Uw formulieren allerlei gegevens vraagt was het mij niet mogelijk die in te vullen. Hoogstens kan ik van enkele stukken die mij invallen een vage beschrijving geven.
[… and I have difficulties because all my information has disappeared, and my memory lets me down badly. It was not possible for me to answer questions in your forms requesting all sorts of data. The most I can do is give vague descriptions of a few objects that come to mind.]
He wrote the following in later correspondence with the Kunstmuseum:
Op ’t ogenblik kan ik mij niets meer te binnen brengen, maar mijn geheugen heeft door alles wat ik pas doorleefd heb, ernstig geleden, misschien valt mij later nog wat in.
[At the moment I can’t remember anything. My memory has suffered greatly from everything I’ve just experienced. Perhaps something will occur to me later.]
Gosschalk’s death
Gosschalk died at the age of 77 on 6 October 1952 in The Hague after a light motorcycle accident. In 1953 the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam honoured Gosschalk with a commemorative exhibition of his landscape drawings.
Provenance of the Painting
The application concerns the painting An Angel Opens the Grave of Christ [De engel bij het graf (De wederopstanding van Christus)] by Cuyp, panel 34.5 x 27 cm. Cuyp produced several works on the subject of Christ’s resurrection:
- Homberg Collection in Amsterdam 1955, panel 74.5 x 103.5 cm.
- Jüngeling Gallery in The Hague (not known when), panel 69 x 66 cm.
- Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, inv. no. 1325, panel 114 x 85 cm., marked.
- Christie’s London 1972, panel 68.6 x 57.1 cm.
- Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, inv. no. NK 2107, panel 34.5 x 27 cm.
- Szépművészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts), Budapest, panel 74.5 x 103.5 cm.
- RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island, marked, panel 92 x 70 cm., inv. no. 62.019.
- Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, panel 81 x 108.5 cm, inv. no. 11009
- Palais de Beaux-Arts, Lille, panel (André Leleux bequest to the museum, 1873)
There are nine works altogether. They can clearly be distinguished from each other on the basis of the dimensions, the details of the composition or, as is the case with the painting in Lille, the provenance. The Painting, number 5 in the summary above, is by far the smallest.
The Painting before the Occupation
Put into 1933 Mak sale by Gosschalk
The Painting went under the hammer on the first day of the sale that took place between 16 and 18 May 1933 at the A. Mak auction house in Dordrecht. There were artworks in this sale from various ‘bekende collecties en nalatenschappen’ [‘well-known collections and estates’], including – referring to Gosschalk – from the ‘Coll. Jos. G. te ’s-Gravenhage (eerste gedeelte)’ [‘Coll. Jos. G. of The Hague (first part)’]. The Painting, number 6 in the catalogue, is listed without an illustration as ‘Christus’ Opstanding / […] / Prachtwerkje / Paneel H. 34 B. 27’ [‘Christ’s Resurrection/ … / Beautiful small work/ Panel H. 34 W. 27’] by Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp. The artist’s name, the description of the composition and the dimensions in the catalogue correspond more or less with those of the Painting. The catalogue mentions nothing about the Painting’s provenance. The ECR’s research in the archive of the Mak auction house in the Dordrecht Regional Archive (RAD) unearthed a sales catalogue that is attached to a lined notebook. The lined pages contain notes about the works described in the catalogue and are thus a record of the auction. It names ‘Gosschalk’ as the seller of the work by Cuyp. ‘M.’ was noted in the column with information about the buyers. This was how the auction house designated works that remained unsold.
The ECR also found correspondence in the Mak archive about the work by Cuyp that had been put up for auction. This included a letter from Joseph Henri Gosschalk to Mak dated 21 March 1933. In it he wrote that ‘uw bediende reeds aan de deur was’[ ‘your employee has already been’], and that he had given him ‘een voorloopige partij’ [‘a provisional batch’]. It contained, among other things, ‘met schrijven van Prof. Wilh. Von Bode: Benj. Cuyp, prachtwerk, absoluut gaaf, op paneel 26 ½ / 33 ½ Opstanding [F.] 350’ [‘a letter from Prof. Wilh. Von Bode: Benj. Cuyp, beautiful work, absolutely intact, on panel 26 ½ / 33 ½ Resurrection [F.] 350’]. Gosschalk corrected his information on a postcard dated 6 May 1933: Het schrijven van Bode is bij een andere B. Cuyp. U kunt dat wel bij het nummer als het opkomt zeggen. Het stuk wordt evenwel volledig gegarandeerd [‘Bode’s letter is about another B. Cuyp. You can of course say so about the work if the subject arises. The work is, however, fully guaranteed]. The ‘Bode’ Gosschalk referred to was the leading German art historian and museum director Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929).
The Painting during the Occupation 1940-1945
The ECR did not find any information about the Painting’s provenance during the seven years after Gosschalk put the work up for sale at Mak in May 1933. No indications were found that he sold and transferred ownership of the work during the period between the auction and the start of the occupation.
Presence of the Painting in Bennewitz art gallery
It is plausible that the Painting was on show during the first year of the occupation in an exhibition at the Bennewitz art gallery at Noordeinde 48 in The Hague.
This exhibition was staged in September 1940 and was then kept open initially to the end of October and thereafter until the end of November 1940. Newspaper articles reveal that the exhibition included old art, primarily sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings by northern and southern Netherlandish masters. One of the reviews mentioned that an exhibition catalogue had been written and that ‘van een deel der paneelen en doeken bekend [is] waar zij vandaan komen, uit welke collecties zij stammen’ [‘it is known what the sources of some of the panels and canvases are, from which collections they came’]. Other articles report that the works were ‘uit particulier bezit’ [‘privately owned’] and were ‘te koop’ [‘for sale’]. Some different paintings were displayed as the exhibition’s length was extended because De verkochte werken zijn door nieuwe vervangen’ [‘the sold paintings were replaced by new ones’]. The ECR was not able to find a copy of the catalogue. Research in and requests for information from a number of cultural institutions in the Netherlands and other countries produced no results. A report about the exhibition in the newspaper De Avondpost of 5 October 1940 refers to a work that, in view of the description, in very probably the Painting.
Een van de mooiste stukken is “Opstanding” van Benjamin Cuyp, de voorstelling van den engel, die de steenen van het Heilige graf afwentelt, terwijl de menigte, verschrikt over het wonder dat zich voltrok, wegholt. De engel staat hier in een stralenbundel en het profanum vulgus op den voorgrond, is in donker gehouden. Maar wát een uitdrukking, wát een beweging zit er in al deze figuren!
[One of the most beautiful works is ‘Resurrection’ by Benjamin Cuyp. It depicts an angel who rolls away the stones from the Holy Sepulchre, while the crowd, frightened by the miracle that has taken place, runs away. The angel stands in a beam of light while the common people in the foreground are portrayed in darkness. What a composition! What movement there is in all these figures!]
None of the newspaper articles about the exhibition in the Bennewitz art gallery contains a photograph of the painting by Cuyp. Precise dimensions are also not mentioned, although the newspaper Het Vaderland of 12 September 1940 notes the following:
Meer handig dan diep, overigens apart en opmerkelijk, is het kleine Bijbelsche tafereel door Benjamin Cuyp, geanimeerd in het gebarenspel.
[The small biblical scene by Benjamin Cuyp, which is clever rather than profound, is special and remarkable and animated by gestures.]
Based on the description of the work given in this and other newspaper articles (the artist, composition, staging, execution, as well as the small format which also sets it apart within Cuyp’s known output on this subject) it is very probably the Painting that was exhibited here. There is, however, no mention of painting’s owner or whether or not it was sold during the exhibition.
No documentation was found during the ECR’s investigation that shows with certainty that Gosschalk put the Painting into the exhibition at the Bennewitz art gallery. It is plausible, however, all the more so because Gosschalk most probably also put another work, which is attributed to De Momper, into the exhibition concerned.
De Momper
Initial research by the ECR into the painting entitled Het oordeel van Paris [Judgement of Paris], attributed to Joos de Momper (II) (1564-1635), revealed that this painting was on show in the exhibition at the Bennewitz art gallery in the autumn of 1940. This painting has been the property of the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) in the United States since 1977.
The investigation into the WAM’s De Momper found indications that this work was exhibited as Gosschalk’s entry in 1927 at exhibitions in the German cities of Chemnitz and Berlin.
Newspaper reports about the exhibition at the Bennewitz art gallery in the autumn of 1940 mention a work whose description and provenance closely match those of the painting in the WAM. None of the newspaper articles about the exhibition at the Bennewitz art gallery mentions who entered the De Momper and whether or not the work was sold at the exhibition. The WAM’s De Momper was sold by the Amsterdam J. Denijs art dealership to an Austrian buyer in August 1942. It is possible that the Dutch painting restorer and art dealer Jan Dik Jr played a role in transactions involving the De Momper.
The De Momper was returned to the Netherlands after the liberation and was subsequently sold in July 1951 for the benefit of the Dutch State in a sale at auctioneers Frederik Muller & Co. in Amsterdam. The recovery and restoration of rights authorities’ documentation relating to the De Momper states ‘Onbekend. JH Gosschalk?’ [‘Unknown. JH Gosschalk?’] in handwriting as ‘‘OWNER’. A letter from Gosschalk to these authorities dated 25 October 1951 provides an indication that he had sold the work by De Momper. He wrote the letter concerned as a result of an investigation by the authorities into another painting by De Momper, entitled ‘Uitzicht door grot op berglandschap’ [View from a Cave of a Mountainous Landscape]. Gosschalk stated the following:
Tot mijn spijt heb ik u wat moeten laten wachten. Mijn aantekeningen (voor zover men die in de bezettingstijd maakte) zijn met mijn inboedelrest nadat ik Jan 1943 werd weggehaald, verdwenen. Het door u genoemde onderwerp werd door De Momper veel behandeld en daar ik speciaal De Momper-collectioneur was had ik er verscheidene. Doordat ik tevens een ander aantal schilderijen in beheer had, waarvan ik bij de administratie wel een lijst vond, ken ik het onderwerp van 2 stuks die toen aan de Heer Schretlen verkocht werden (Juli 1941), één was een berglandschap met een soort S. Hieronymus, het ander een toren v. Babel. Van andere De Mompers kan ik mij niet herinneren aan wie ik die verkocht, zoo werd dit voorjaar bij Fred Muller & Co er een geveild Berglandschap met Paris’ Oordeel die ook uit mijn collectie komt, maar waarvan ik ook niet mijn koper herinner. Ik heb met antwoorden afgewacht vergeefs of mij iets nog te binnen zou schieten.
[I apologize for making you wait a while. My notes (in so far as one made them during the occupation) disappeared together with the remainder of my household effects after I had been removed in January 1943. The subject you mentioned was covered extensively by De Momper, and since I was a special De Momper collector I had several. I also had a number of other paintings in my care, of which I found a list in my records, so I know the subject of 2 objects that were sold to Mr Schretlen at that time (July 1941). One was a mountain landscape with a kind of St Jerome, the other a Tower of Babel. I cannot remember who I sold other De Mompers to, but this spring Fred Muller & Co auctioned a Mountain Landscape with the Judgement of Paris, which also came from my collection, but I cannot remember the buyer for it either. I waited in vain for answers to come to mind.]
Gosschalk did not state when his buyer had acquired Berglandschap met Paris’ Oordeel [Mountainous Landscape with Judgement of Paris], but the content and context of his letter suggest that he was referring to a sale during the occupation.
Gosschalk’s collection during the occupation
There is no known comprehensive overview of the contents of Gosschalk’s collection when Germany invaded on 10 May 1940 or of the changes to this collection in the years thereafter until the end of the occupation.
It can be deduced from the documentation consulted that during the occupation Gosschalk bought and sold various artworks. There are, for example, references in post-war SNK documentation to paintings that Gosschalk sold to the Amsterdam art dealer M.J.A.M. Schretlen (1890-1972) in the ‘summer of 1940’ and in ‘July 1941’. This last transaction might have involved works that Gosschalk had in his care. Gosschalk also offered works to Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, which informed him in October 1942 that it had decided not to acquire a painting by the artist Charles Rochussen (1814-1894) and a few drawings. The business records of the Mak van Waay auction house in Amsterdam show that Gosschalk made purchases there in 1941. None of the examples given above of purchases and sales, and attempts to those ends, concerned the Painting.
Safekeeping of items, loans and donations during the occupation
Gosschalk’s correspondence reveals that during the occupation objects from his collection went to ‘Bewaarders’ [‘Custodians’]. Documentation was found in the archive of the Kunstmuseum in The Hague about artworks of his that were in this museum during the war for safekeeping. It is not known whether Gosschalk’s reference to ‘Custodians’ related to the Kunstmuseum or also other entities or people.
During the occupation Gosschalk made several donations to Dutch museums. The archive of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, for example, contains correspondence dated 1942 about the donation of a collection of sketch books and miscellaneous items that had belonged to the architect Isaac Gosschalk (1838-1907). References were found in the archive of the Kunstmuseum in The Hague to donations by Gosschalk of works by the artists Van den Berg, Bles, Van der Drift, Huijs and Signac during the first half of the war. No mention was found during the investigation of any safekeeping by or loan or donation to Dutch museums of the Painting.
Netherlands Art Property Foundation (SNK)
On 11 June 1945 the Dutch government established the SNK, which was given a key role in the return, management and restitution of cultural material that had been taken to Germany during the war. The collection of information about missing art was an important administrative task of the SNK. Under a regulation issued by the military authorities in July 1945, everyone who had sold or handed over art treasures to the enemy during the war, or who had information on the subject, was obliged to submit a declaration to the SNK. The SNK supplemented these data on the basis of other sources, such as the records of auction houses, road hauliers, railway companies and looting organisations in the Netherlands, and documentation obtained from the allies. This activity generated a large number of internal declaration forms that could be used to identify and claim artworks in Germany.
Contact between SNK and Gosschalk
In November 1945 Gosschalk wrote to the SNK stating that he had lost the lion’s share of his art collection during the occupation. He asked what he had to do to regain possession of it. Gosschalk was, for example, obliged to surrender works to the German robber bank Lippmann, Rosenthal & Co. (Liro) in Sarphatistraat in Amsterdam. He was also robbed while in Barneveld or Westerbork and possessions were removed from the dwelling he had left behind in The Hague. The ECR did not find any references to the work by Cuyp in the documentation it consulted relating to confiscations of works owned by Gosschalk. Gosschalk stated that it was difficult to give particulars about the missing works: ‘Daar de Duitsers mijn koffers met papieren ook achtergehouden hebben bezit ik geen aanteekeningen meer om een lijst te kunnen geven met nauwkeurige omschrijving. Herkennen kan ik de stukken wel’ [‘The Germans kept hold of my suitcases containing papers, so I no longer have any notes for making a list with accurate descriptions. I am able to recognize the objects, however’]. On 5 December 1945 the SNK sent him 25 declaration forms so he could provide information. In a letter to the SNK dated 5 July 1946 Gosschalk once again stated that it was not, or only barely, possible for him to report detailed information:
Zoals ik u al vroeger mededeelde ben ik het grootste deel van mijn kunstbezit kwijt geworden in de bezettingstijd en heb ik de moeilijkheid dat ook alle gegevens verdwenen zijn en mijn geheugen mij deerlijk in den steek laat. Waar u in Uw formulieren allerlei gegevens vraagt was het mij niet mogelijk die in te vullen. Hoogstens kan ik van enkele stukken die mij invallen een vage beschrijving geven. […] / Mijn vertrek uit Den Haag liet mij al te weinig tijd om aanteekeningen te maken, zelfs niet om te onthouden of schilderijen enz. naar “Bewaarders”, naar Barneveld (waar ze ook verdwenen), naar Lippmann gingen of in mijn huis achterbleven en daar later weggehaald werden.
[As I notified you previously, I lost the lion’s share of my art holdings during the occupation, and I have difficulties because all my information has disappeared and my memory lets me down badly. It was not possible for me to answer questions in your forms requesting all sorts of data. The most I can do is give vague descriptions of a few objects that come to mind.… / My departure from The Hague gave me too little time to make notes, and not even to remember whether paintings etc. went to ‘Custodians’, to Barneveld (where they also disappeared), to Lippmann or whether they remained in my home, from where they were later taken away.]
Gosschalk called on the SNK to identify and retrieve his works of art. In his letter he also asked about the possibility of receiving partial compensation in respect of the paintings he had sold. Gosschalk completed three declaration forms relating to old master paintings. None of them were works by Cuyp. One of the works on these forms, a painting by an artist from the school of Rogier van der Weijden, was restituted by the SNK to Gosschalk in 1948. In so far as it is possible to check, this was the only artwork that Gosschalk got back from the SNK or its successors. Besides the restituted work, the post-war recovery and restitution authorities had custody of various other paintings with a possible Gosschalk provenance.
Denijs art gallery, April 1944
The ECR did not find a declaration form about the Painting. There is, however, an SNK internal declaration concerning it. The form, which was filled in on 30 November 1945, states that the artwork concerned was originally in the possession of ‘Mej. J. Denijs, Kunsthandel, Keizersgracht 565-567, Amsterdam’ [‘Miss J. Denijs, Art dealership, Keizersgracht 565-567, Amsterdam’], and that she sold it on ‘3 April 1944’. The SNK reported on the internal declaration form that it was a ‘vrijwillige verkoop’ [‘voluntary sale’]. It did not explain the basis for this.
According to documentation in the SNK archive, the J. Denijs art dealership sold the Painting on 3 April 1944 for NLG 3,000 to ‘D.A. Cords Söhne’ at Zollstrasse 48 in Hamburg. The transaction appears to have been conducted via the firm of ‘Bierich & Co.’ at Bottgerstrasse 15 in Hamburg. The ECR requested documentation about this firm from the Hamburg State Archives. These sources provide no further provenance information about the Painting.
Jannetje (Jans) Denijs (1870-1953) was a Dutch antiques dealer who opened her first antiques shop in 1912 in Nieuwe Spiegelstraat in Amsterdam. Her nephew Johannes (Hans) de Lange (1901-1982) joined the firm in the 1920s and became a partner in 1939. When the Second World War started, the J. Denijs art dealership was one of the larger Amsterdam antiques businesses. In May 1941 the firm bought property at Keizersgracht 565 and 567 comprising a mansion and a warehouse. Hans de Lange and his family moved into the upper storey of the house. Show rooms were fitted out in the warehouse for clients.
The ECR was not able to establish when and from whom Denijs acquired the painting by Cuyp. Consulting documentation relating to Gosschalk, Denijs and De Lange in the National Archives of the Netherlands and elsewhere did not yield any relevant information. Attempts by the ECR to trace a business archive of the J. Denijs art dealership were not successful.
In order to find information about any business contacts between the J. Denijs art dealership and Gosschalk, the firm’s management file in the SNK was examined to see whether there were any references to him. The name Gosschalk is mentioned only once in the file concerned Jannetje Denijs noted on a declaration form she completed about a painting by the artist Roelant Savery that the work was originally in the possession of ‘Gosschalk, Den Haag’. It is not known whether Denijs meant that she acquired the work directly from Gosschalk and, if so, when and in which circumstances.
An article in the newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad in 1953 reported the following about Jannetje Denijs: ‘De oorlog is ook voor mej. Denijs – die in haar pakhuis heel wat meubels en kostbaarheden van Joodse stadsgenoten veilig heeft bewaard – een moeilijke tijd geweest’. [‘The war was also a difficult time for Miss Denijs, who used her warehouse for the safekeeping of many pieces of furniture and valuables belonging to Jewish residents’]. Reference can also be made in this context to a 2020 article by the art historian Jan van Campen about the J. Denijs art dealership. In it the author commented that Denijs and De Lange earned money during the war by doing business with German clients, but at the same time she offered to help her Jewish colleagues. In order to avoid expropriation, she would store parts of these colleagues’ trading stocks in the attics of the premises at Keizersgracht 567.
The firm would also sell goods from these hidden collections: ‘Volgens de herinneringen van Bert Bochove, de latere compagnon van Hans de Lange, verkocht de firma ook uit deze ondergedoken collecties, verkopen die tot tevredenheid van beide partijen na de oorlog werden afgerekend’ [‘According to the reflections of Bert Bochove. who later became a partner of Hans de Lange, the firm also sold items from these hidden collections. These sales were settled after the war to the satisfaction of both parties’]. The articles by Van Campen and in the Algemeen Handelsblad do not mention any names of the owners of these hidden goods. It is not known whether the J. Denijs art dealership also held the Painting in the occupation. The ECR contacted Van Campen, but this did not yield any further information about the Painting’s provenance.
An investigation was launched after the liberation into the conduct of Denijs and De Lange during the war. In 1949 the Special Criminal Court in Amsterdam granted conditional immunity from prosecution. They each had to pay a fine of NLG 10.000.
Jan Dik Jr
It is possible that the Dutch painting restorer and art dealer Jan Dik Jr played a role in transactions involving the work by Cuyp. A great deal of money could be made by selling paintings during the occupation. The Denijs art dealership entered into a collaborative arrangement with Dik, who knew about art and had business contacts, in order to profit from this. It financed Dik in the selling of a large number of paintings to the Germans. The arrangement between the partners ended in late 1943 or early 1944 when it emerged that Dik was also trading independently.
After the liberation Dik was sentenced under the auspices of special criminal jurisdiction in his absence to three years imprisonment. He had been charged with ‘opzettelijk in tijd van oorlog de vijand hulp heeft verleend’ [‘deliberately helping the enemy in time of war’] by, among other things, selling to people outside the country together with the J. Denijs art dealership. Dik was able to escape from his prison sentence by fleeing the Netherlands.
Dik’s file in the Central Archives for Special Criminal Jurisdiction (CABR) contains a letter from Denijs dated 12 April 1948 in which she refers to a list, enclosed with the letter, of paintings that ‘bij ons verhandeld zijn in de periode, dat de Heer J. Dik Jr. met ons zaken deed’ [‘our business traded during the period in which Mr J. Dik Jr did business with us’]. There is a painting on this list designated as ‘BENJ. CUYP Opstanding’ [‘BENJ. CUYP Resurrection’]. The name (Gosschalk)’ and the date ‘10/9. [1942]’ are noted. The work on the list was apparently sold to ‘Herbst’, which probably refers to Dr Johann (Hans) Herbst (1915-1982), an Austrian art dealer who had been linked to the Dorotheum auction house in Vienna since the nineteen-thirties. The CABR file on Dik also contains a photograph with the caption ‘No. 9 / Benj. Cuijp / “Opstanding” / verkocht aan Dr. Herbst’ [‘No. 9 / Benj. Cuijp / “Resurrection” / sold to Dr Herbst’]. The artist’s name and the title of the composition correspond to a degree with that of the Painting, but the photograph is of a different work. It does not portray the resurrection of Christ but the liberation of Peter from prison by an angel (Acts 12:7-8). It is not possible to rule out the possibility that an incorrect photograph was filed with the work. The work in the photograph might currently be in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) as The Liberation of Saint Peter. According to the WAM’s website, the provenance of the painting concerned is ‘Lampertz Gallery, Cologne, Germany; then sold to the Worcester Art Museum, July 10, 1956’. The names Gosschalk, Denijs, De Lange, Dik or Herbst are not mentioned. A request from the ECR to the WAM for additional information about the painting The Liberation of Saint Peter produced no further provenance data.
The Painting after the liberation
Recovery and return, 1948
As stated above, on 30 November 1945 the SNK completed an internal declaration form about the Painting. Later it added the following text to this form: ‘Transp. Hamburg.V 31.1.1948’, from which it can be deduced that the work was brought back to the Netherlands from Hamburg on 31 January 1948. Gosschalk’s name does not appear on the form. This name is also not in the inventory book or on the inventory card on which the SNK noted the details of the returned painting. The documentation concerned does, however, mention the names Denijs, Bierich & Co. and D.A. Cords Söhne.
The ECR did not find any indications during its investigation that Gosschalk, the partners of the J. Denijs art dealership or Jan Dik Jr reported to the SNK that the Painting had come into enemy possession during the occupation. Nor did it emerge that the SNK had told the parties involved that the Painting was back in the Netherlands.
Contact between Kunstmuseum The Hague and Gosschalk
After the war Gosschalk corresponded with the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague about works he owned that were in the museum. On 21 February 1949, while he was in hospital, he specified the works concerned. He ended his letter as follows:
Op ’t ogenblik kan ik mij niets meer te binnen brengen, maar mijn geheugen heeft door alles wat ik pas doorleefd heb, ernstig geleden, misschien valt mij later nog wat in. / Voorlopig hebt u dus al een en ander om op te sporen, waarvoor bij voorbaat mijn dank. / Later als ik hier levend uit kom, moeten wij maar zien wat we met een en ander doen.
[At the moment I can’t remember anything else. My memory has suffered greatly from everything I’ve just experienced. Perhaps something will occur to me later. / So you already have a few things to look into for the time being, for which I thank you in advance. / Later, if I emerge from here alive, we will have to see what we do with the items concerned.]
Gosschalk acknowledged in a statement of 4 April 1950 that he had received everything he had lent to the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. No references to the Painting were found in the documentation relating to items that Gosschalk had lent and handed over for safekeeping.
Rijksmuseum exhibition, 1950
In 1949 and 1950 the SNK organized three claim exhibitions of returned artworks in The Hague and Amsterdam. These were intended to give original owners of the recovered goods or their heirs the opportunity to recognize their lost artworks themselves and to make any claims. The painting by Cuyp was in the 1950 exhibition in the Rijksmuseum. The work can be recognized on photographs of the exhibition. The ECR researched the SNK files about the claim exhibitions and was not able to establish whether Gosschalk had visited them.
The SNK took the view that artworks that had not been recognized in the exhibitions could be considered as being ‘niet in aanmerking te komen voor rechtsherstel, waardoor er van de zijde van de Staat over kan worden beschikt’ [‘not eligible for restitution of rights and so are available to the State’]. After the claim exhibitions, the recovered goods that were of value to museums were handed over to the Ministry of Education, Arts and Science. One such item was the Painting.
