Hanover hang
John Vincent tells how a painting hidden from the Nazis throughout the war ended up in Yorkshire.
How did a 108-year-old painting of the undulating hills, forests and streams of Lower Saxony by a little-remembered German artist end up in Bradford? That was what Jane Winfrey, Leeds-based regional picture specialist for Bonhams, wanted to know when she arrived to conduct a valuation in a house close to the Cartwright Hall art gallery in Bradford.
What she heard was the story of an artwork caught up in the tyrannies, subterfuge and suffering that swept Europe in the 20th century – the most murderous in recorded history and dominated by two world wars.
It began in about 1900 when Julius Rothschild, of the banking family, and his wife Alice met painter Fritz Mackensen (1866-1953), co-founder of the artists’ colony at Worpswede, a German equivalent of the colony at Staithes. Rothschild became the artist’s patron and commissioned his new-found friend to paint a number of portraits as well as the landscape reproduced here, An Extensive Rolling Landscape – Worpswede, to hang in the couple’s fashionably furnished house at 5 Eichendorffstrasse,
Hanover, in 1913. Now the much-travelled picture has made one more journey – from Yorkshire to London – where it has a guide price of £2,000-£3,000 at Bonhams on Wednesday.
After the deaths of both Julius and
Alice Rothschild by 1921, their son Walter continued to live in the house with wife Charlotte, whom he married in 1922. But after the Nazis seized power, lawyer Walter lost his position as a district court judge and the pair were forced to flee their home.
Their furniture and paintings – this landscape included – were hidden in Charlotte’s parents’ barn in Baden Baden 250 miles to the south. In 1938, Walter was taken to Dachau concentration camp where he remained until release in 1945.
Having survived the war, Walter and Charlotte retrieved their possessions and moved to Switzerland where Walter died in 1950. It was only now that Charlotte could reclaim 5 Eichendorffstrasse, which she sold to support herself after years of relying on family and friends.
Walter and Charlotte’s son Edgar (19242012) emigrated to England with his wife, Esther, and the painting was shipped to their new home in Bradford. Their three children, Sylvia, Walter and Joyce, grew up as active members of Bradford Reform Synagogue.
Now, after four generations, a new owner will be able to reflect on the extraordinary provenance of An Extensive Rolling Landscape – Worpswede, a picture which survived some of the most turbulent times in world history.
A few final words on the award-winning artist Fritz Mackensen. His work was approved by the Nazis, who heaped honours on him. But after the war he destroyed everything he painted during that period. He died in Worpswede, the village he had made into a famous art colony, in 1953.
Paws for thought: Everybody who has ever watched commercial television will remember the Dulux Dog. Dash, the Old English sheepdog, first appeared in 1961 and it’s rumoured he belonged to the advert’s director and ran on set to play with the child actors. When editing the footage, Dash looked so good they kept him in – and the rest, as they say, is advertising history. A reminder of one of the UK’s most famous TV ads came with the sale at Tennants for £215 of a Beswick pottery dog with his paw on a tin of Dulux.
Vintage sale: A 1970 red Triumph Herald convertible that featured in Last of the Summer Wine sold for £19,800 at Tennants. It was one of three similar models used in the long-running 1973-2010 show .
In the mix: A silver cocktail shaker by William Bush of Sheffield, dated 1949, and a modern silver model of a horse by Camelot Silverware, of Gibraltar Street, Sheffield, dated 2007, are set to fetch up to £1,100 at
Woolley & Wallis of Salisbury, Wiltshire, on Wednesday.
Candlepower: A pair of stunning
19th century French ormolu-mounted white marble candelabra, inspired by the Four Seasons candelabra by sculptor Jean-Francois Lorta for two of Louis XV’s daughters, are expected to fetch £30,000£40,000 at Tennants next weekend. Classical, robe-clad female figures representing summer and autumn bear aloft incense burners and candle arms lavishly garlanded with fruit and flowers.
Bathed in light: By the Water’s Edge, a pastel on paper by York-born Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929), depicting a bare-chested young man reclining on a beach, sold for an unexpected £31,500 at a Male Form auction at Bonhams in London. The 1926 picture had been estimated to fetch £6,000-£9,000. Its original owner, a Major Allport Hay, paid £25 for it.