Disputed Ownership. On the provenance of two works by Jan Toorop in the Boymans Museum: the painting titled The Thames (1885) and the drawing known as Faith in God (Godsvertrouwen) (1907) Anita Hopmans Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), The Hague 1 I. Foreword The return of art and cultural artefacts that have illegally father’s former collection of drawings and paintings that changed ownership for any of a variety of reasons is had been owned by the Boijmans Van Beuningen currently the focus of attention. In the Netherlands the Museum Foundation since the end of 1940, and the spotlight has recently been turned on the outcome of the recovered works that were lent to the Boymans Museum request by the heirs of the Amsterdam art dealer Jacques from the national collection after 1945. And the descend- Goudstikker (1897-1940) for the return of the works of ants of the Jewish businessman Ernst Flersheim (1862- art that had come into the national collection after 1945. 1944) claimed, through his grandson Walter Eberstadt, The Dutch government decided to give back a total of two works of art by the artist Jan Toorop (1858-1928). 202 works of art to the heirs. Museums have frequently A great many issues relating to the Second World War been in the news in recent years because of claims proved not to be the closed chapters that many people relating to acquisitions made during or around the time had long taken it for granted they were. of the Second World War. The Boijmans Van Beuningen This publication looks specifically at the questions Museum in Rotterdam is no exception. The descendants that arose about the two works by Jan Toorop that of several pre-war collectors claimed works of art that originally belonged to the collector Ernst Flersheim: the this museum acquired during or before the war or painting titled The Thames of 1885 and the drawing received later as a bequest. The heirs of the French known as Faith in God of 1907 (fig. 1, 2). These works of collector Adolphe Schloss, for instance, demanded the art were acquired in 1937 and 1943 by the Boymans return of a still life by the seventeenth-century painter Museum and the Boymans Museum Foundation (on Dirck van Delen from the bequest of Vitale Bloch behalf of the Boymans Museum) respectively. (1900-1975) to the museum. Christine Koenigs, a grand- Detailed research has been undertaken into these daughter of the banker Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941), two acquisitions as part of an ongoing investigation into who lived in the Netherlands from 1922 until his death, the acquisitions of modern art in the museum.1 Informa- requested the return of both that part of her grand- tion about the circumstances in which these purchases Fig. 1 Jan Toorop, The Thames, 1885, oil/canvas, 95 x 180.5 cm, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam 2 collections and to ensure that the findings are well documented and made accessible. This publication has received the support of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum from the outset. For this I am grateful to former director Chris Dercon and his successor Sjarel Ex, who has been in charge of the museum since 1 July 2004. He joins me in thanking in particular the private individuals to whom I was able to address more specific questions and who made their archives and records available for this research – in the first place Wil van Eck-Nieuwenhuizen Segaar and Jan Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, the children of the art dealer G.J. Nieuwenhuizen Segaar, and the heirs of Edgar Fern- hout who gave me unrestricted access to the archives of Charley Toorop and Edgar Fernhout. I should also like to take this opportunity to express my special thanks to J.C. Ebbinge Wubben, former director of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, for his generosity and patience in answering countless remaining questions and Gerard van Wezel for the opportunity he gave me to check the assembled data against his documentation. Anita Hopmans December 2006 Fig. 2 Jan Toorop, Faith in God, pencil, black and coloured chalk, 57.9 x 43.5 cm, ill. in Frankfurter Kunstschätze im Kunstverein, catalogue of the exhibition in Frankfurt (Frankfurter Kunstverein), July-September 1913 came about made it possible to significantly flesh out the general view of the Boymans Museum, which in this period was headed by Dirk Hannema (1895-1984) as its director. This research was also desirable because the report of the investigation into these acquisitions that was published in 1999, following an initial claim by the Flersheim heirs, had not been able to answer several important questions and had at the same time raised a number of new ones. This report also proved to contain various inaccuracies with regard to the acquisition of The Thames. In short, there was every reason to carry out additional research into the two Toorop acquisitions and to try to provide access to the data retrieved that was as factual and as clear as possible. The main question in this investigation was how The Thames found its way into the art trade in 1937 and eventually ended up in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum. The research also turned up new information and sources about the drawing Faith in God and two other works by Jan Toorop, the painting Saying Grace and the drawing Paul Preaching on the Areopagus. These supplementary data are also presented here as fully as possible. As a general introduction we give a brief outline of the development of the Dutch policy on restitution, since current views of this have changed rapidly. Undertaking good provenance research has never been so topical. These developments prompted museums to carry out more research into their own 3 II. Disputed ownership: the museum guidelines and Dutch restitution policy Public cultural property is by definition shared property Jewish couple Adele and Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer and and can only flourish when it is undisputed. Where Alma Mahler-Werfel attracted widespread international doubt exists, ‘thorough research’ is desirable and the attention. ‘necessary measures’ have to be taken ‘to arrive at a fair But in the mid nineteen-nineties there were even and reasonable decision about the right of ownership’. more distressing revelations. The international press Since the autumn of 1999 this principle has been fol- published reports of gold ingots worth billions in Swiss lowed as a guideline by Dutch museums – specifically bank vaults, deposited by the Nazis and left untouched and with priority in respect of objects that entered there ever since. There were also said to be other the museums’ collections during or shortly before or valuables for which no (Jewish) claimants had come after the Second World War or were acquired later forward after 1945. Under the weight of public opinion, but changed hands during this precise period.2 The the Swiss banks, which had until then insisted that they guideline, which was formulated by the Netherlands were bound by the banker’s duty of secrecy, were com- Museum Association (NMV) as a rider to the general pelled to undertake a major investigation into possible museum code of conduct, calls for museums to ask legitimate owners. This front page news was followed critical questions about the provenance of these objects by a string of reports about other ‘dormant’ accounts and to undertake research into it. This watchful attitude – balances belonging to Jewish war victims that were to wartime art and the provenance of cultural heritage lodged with banks, insurance companies and government in general is new. Painstaking investigative journalism agencies in various European countries.4 This helped has increased our awareness of the issue. This change awaken public interest in these issues and opened our in thinking prompted the development of the present eyes to the shortcomings of the redress made after the restitution policy. war. A legacy of shame The Dutch restitution policy One of the earliest clarion calls was an article about In consequence of the publication in 1995 of an the Mauerbach case. In the mid nineteen-eighties, follo- article by the French journalist Hector Feliciano about wing in Simon Wiesenthal’s footsteps, the American postwar recovery and restitution in France, Le musée journalist Andrew Decker demanded the world’s atten- disparu (The Lost Museum), the French national mu- tion for the fate of some eight thousand works of art that seums staged a series of exhibitions in Paris in April were leading a shadowy existence in the monastery of 1997. They featured all the remaining works of art Mauerbach near Vienna. After the Second World War previously recovered by the French state – all told some these items, which had been looted and confiscated 2000 pieces that had not been claimed or for other chiefly from Jewish citizens by the Nazis, were the last reasons had not been restored to the original owners to be transferred from one of the Allies’ art collecting or their heirs.5 This extraordinary event received wide points to Austria (in 1955 when Austria gained her coverage and almost immediately provoked critical independence), so that they could be returned to the questions in the Netherlands.6 How did the Dutch stand original owners or their heirs. Decker’s investigation when it came to dealing with claims to the art recovered revealed, however, that since that time the Austrian from Germany and Austria after the Second World War? government had made virtually no effort to return any The initial press reports were not very encouraging. of these works, despite the fact that this was an import- A random check revealed, for instance, that the records ant element of the international agreements.