(Q23061862)
Statements
22 June 1952
1 reference
Jonkheer John Henry van Haeften
30 April 1977
1 reference
7 August 2020
1 reference
If the woman in the picture could speak, she would tell you a lot — about the container that was never sent, but instead cracked open in Hamburg by the Nazis, who would find her inside. About how they shipped her to Frankfurt in 1941, where she was sold at the Heinrich Hahn auction house by a mysterious seller with the initials “F.L.” And about how, from that point on, she disappeared from public records for almost 50 years.She could tell you about passing through the hands of London art dealer Johnny van Haeften in 1986, who obtained her — again — from an unnamed owner, passing it on to be sold at a Sotheby's auction in New York in 1987. There, the volunteer committee for the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a small, plucky Canadian museum determined to add to its collection of one Golden Age Dutch master painting, bought it for $50,000.She could tell you, too, about the space in between — those 45 years of darkness, for which no records exist. What anyone can tell you now, though, is that she was the rightful property of Alma Salomonsohn/Solmssen, no matter where she was and who she was with, over all those decades. And finally, in spring of next year, she'll be going home. (English)
Identifiers
1 reference
Sitelinks
Wikipedia(3 entries)
- dewiki Johnny Van Haeften
- enwiki Johnny Van Haeften
- nlwiki Johnny van Haeften