Still Life with Profile of Laval

Given by the artist to Charles Laval [1862-1894] in 1887.{1} Possibly to (Ambroise Vollard [1867-1939], Paris, France).{2} Schuffenecker, around 1906.{3} With the (Galerie Miethke, Vienna, Austria) by 1907.{4} Marczell de Nêmes [1866-before 1931], Budapest, Hungary.{5} (Alexandre Rosenberg, known as Rosenberg Père, Paris, France);{6} Baron Mór Lipót Herzog [1869-1934], also known as Moritz Leopold Herzog, by 1912;{7} By inheritance to his son András Herzog [1902- 1942?] by 1938;{8} Seized from Herzog storage by Hungarian State Security Police and placed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, in 1944;{9} With other art from Budapest, the painting is accompanied by Dénes Czánky, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, via the convent in Szentgotthárd, Hungary, and the monastery in Admont, Austria, to the town of Grassau, in southeastern Bavaria in spring 1945;{10} Taken to the Munich Central Collecting Point by Monuments Man, Thomas Carr Howe, Jr., on 25 June 1945;{11} Munich Central Collecting Points no. 1099/25;{12} Restituted to Maria Izabella Parravicini [1912-1982], former wife of András Herzog, via Dr. Emil Oppler, Budapest, a family friend and lawyer, in 1948;{13} To (Sándor Donáth, Hungary, then Zurich) in 1948.{14} (Wildenstein and Co., New York, New York).{15} Mr. and Mrs. Otto L. Spaeth, New York, New York, by 1952.{16} Mr. and Mrs. Walter B. Ford II, by 1964;{17} Sold at (Christie's, New York, New York) to Samuel Josefowitz, Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1980;{18} Acquired as a partial gift/partial purchase by the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 1998 (1998.167). {1} This early provenance is given in Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, 2002, catalogue raisonné no. 238. {2} Vollard's name appears in a typescript copy of an unpublished catalogue of Gauguin's paintings (by Douglas Cooper?). Copies in IMA Provenance file (1998.167). {3} See footnote 1 above. {4} It appears in an exhibition of works by Gauguin held at the Galerie Miethke, March-April 1907, as no. 70 with the notation "for sale." See Donald Gordon, Modern Art Exhibitions 1900-1916, volume II, 1974, p. 191. {5} See footnote 1 above. {6} According to a document prepared in 1998 by Lászlo Mravik, Director of the Cultural Research Group at the National Museum, Budapest, the painting was sold to Mór Lipót Herzog by Rosenberg Père, Paris. Copy in IMA Provenance file (1998.167). {7} The painting appears in the Sonderbund Internationale Kunstausstellung, Cologne, Städtische Ausstellungshalle, 25 May - 30 September 1912, catalogue no. 152, as lent by "Baron Moritz Leopold Herzog." See Donald Gordon, as cited above, p. 589. (It was not purchased out of the auction of Baron Marczell de Nêmes' collection in 1913, as is sometimes stated.) {8} The collection of Mór Lipót Herzog was, for the most part, distributed between his three children: András Herzog, Erzsébet Herzog (then already married to Alfonz Weiss), and István Herzog. This painting was included in the exhibition Honderd Jaar Fransche Kunst, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1938, catalogue no. 122a, as lent by" Baron A. Herzog, Budapest." He lent five paintings to this exhibition and all were returned to him upon its closing. Following the exhibition, this painting, along with other items in the Herzog collection were stored by the owners in the cellars of the Labor Company at Budafok, outside Budapest. For the history of the Herzog collection, see Lászlo Mravik, "Sacco Di Budapest": Depredation of Hungary, 1938-1949, 1998, p. 305. {9} A document in the Hungarian National Archives (K 643-1944-201, Fol. 6) states that the painting was found in 1944 by the State Security Police in the Budafok laboratory; copy in IMA Provenance file (1998.167). The seized collection may have been offered to the Eichmann Sonderkommando at its headquarters in the Hotel Majestic in Budapest; if so, the Gauguin painting was among the unwanted materials and was transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts by the State Security Police for safekeeping on 20 May 1944. {10} For a report dated 1 June 1945 by Thomas Bogyay, who accompanied Czanky to Grassau, see National Archives and Records Administration, RG260 OMGUS: Records of the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, Restitution Research Records, Investigations by Foreign Representatives: France, Microfilm M1946, roll 134 (also available at Fold3.com, http://www.fold3.com/image/270141956, retrieved 22 July 2014). {11} For the receipt issued to Howe upon his arrival with the paintings from Grassau, see National Archives and Records Administration, RG260 OMGUS: Records of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Section of the Preparations and Restitution Branch, Claims of Cultural Property Removed by German Forces, Bavaria Decl. No. 10840, Microfilm M1949, roll 27 (also available at Fold3.com, http://www.fold3.com/image/293111362, retrieved 22 July 2014.) See in addition Thomas Carr Howe, Jr.'s narrative of his trip to Grassau, in his Saltmines and Castles: The Discovery and Restitution of Looted European Art, Indianapolis, 1946, pp. 68-77. {12} See Deutsches Historisches Museum, database of MCCP property cards, at http://www.dhm.de/datenbank/ccp/dhm_ccp.php?seite=6&fld_1=1099%2F25&fld_3=&auswahl=6&fld_4=&fld_4a=&fld_5=&fld_6=&fld_7=&fld_8=&fld_9=&fld_10=&suchen=Suchen, retrieved July 2014 (note that this card is incompletely scanned). See also NGA, MCCP Photographic documentation, for 1099/25. The Gauguin, listed with the title, "Still Life with profile of a man," appears on an itemized list documenting the 3rd shipment to Hungary, dated 21 August 1947; see National Archives and Records Administration, RG260 OMGUS: Records of the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, Activity Reports and Related Records, Status of Collecting Point Munich: Transport Lists: Hungary, Microfilm M1946, roll 76 (also available at Fold3.com, http://www.fold3.com/image/270067373, retrieved 22 July 2014). Upon close inspection, the stretcher bears the partially effaced remnants of the Munich no. 99/25). {13} András Herzog was sent to a labor camp in 1942 and never returned. Because he had only under-age heirs, the paintings were restituted to his former wife Maria Izabella Parravicini, divorced from András Herzog in 1939 and remarried to Count Istvan Bethlen, Jr. Police records of a smuggling prosecution in 1949 detail the facts of the restitution and the role of Dr. Oppler. See footnote 14 below. {14} The 1949 police investigation against the wife of István Herzog claimed that proper export licenses had not been procured for works in the Herzog collection, including those in possession of Maria Izabella Parravicini. While this may have been the case for a number of the Herzog pictures, Gauguin's Still Life with Profile of Laval had been granted permission for export; see copies of papers from the Hungarian National Archives (K 726-1948-732) in IMA Provenance file (1998.167). This is corroborated by the presence of an export stamp bearing the Hungarian national crest on the verso of the canvas. The police investigation materials identify Donáth as an art dealer who left Hungary for Zurich in 1948. {15} See footnote 1 above.