Key Findings of the Provenance Research
On January 31, 2009, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation settled litigation concerning its ownership of Pablo Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette. Given the extensive costs associated with prolonged litigation, the Guggenheim determined that agreeing to settle the case was the best and most fiscally prudent course of action to ensure that the painting would remain on view for the benefit of the public and scholars.
At issue in this litigation was whether the sale of Le Moulin de la
Galette to Justin K. Thannhauser (1892–1976) in 1934 or 1935 in Nazi
Germany was the product of economic duress. Extensive research into the
provenance of the painting, the key findings of which are set forth
below, is the basis for the Guggenheim’s conclusion that it is, and has
always been, the rightful owner of the painting, and that the sale of
the painting by the von Mendelssohn-Bartholdys was not due to economic
duress.
Background, Gift of Paintings to Elsa von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, and Acquisition of Paintings by Justin K. Thannhauser
Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1875–1935) was a descendant of the
philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the composer Felix Mendelssohn. At
the time of his death in May 1935, Paul was one of two senior partners
in the Mendelssohn & Co. bank, one of the largest and most important privately owned banks in Germany. Mendelssohn & Co. was run by Jewish members of the family until 1938.
In February 1910, Paul executed his first will and testament, which
provided that his then wife, Charlotte (née Reichenheim, later Countess
Wesdehlen, 1877–1946), would inherit all household property acquired
during their marriage, such as furniture and artworks.
In or around 1910, Paul purchased Pablo Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette
(1900) from the Moderne Galerie in Munich. Heinrich Thannhauser, the
owner of the gallery, was the father of art dealer, collector, and
subsequent owner of the painting Justin K. Thannhauser.
Paul and Charlotte divorced and, in September 1927 Paul married Elsa (née
von Lavergne-Peguilhen, later Countess von Kesselstatt, 1899–1986).
Elsa was Christian.
In July 1934, Thannhauser’s cousin, Siegfried Rosengart (1894–1985) of the
Galleries Thannhauser in Berlin and Lucerne, recorded in his collector
notebook a visit and series of discussions with Paul. Rosengart’s remarks alongside a list of five Picasso pictures indicate that the collector “eventually might part with these for a good offer.”
The five Picasso pictures included Le Moulin de la Galette.
In October 1934, the Galleries Thannhauser organized a loan of the five
Picasso paintings to an exhibition of the artist’s work at the Galeria
Müller in Buenos Aires.
In February 1935, Paul executed a contract of inheritance that excluded
from his estate any marital property, including, specifically, the von
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy art collection, which Paul confirmed he had
previously given to Elsa upon their marriage in 1927. Thus, the
contract of inheritance reiterated the concept set forth in Paul’s 1910
will that all marital property, including artworks, was to be owned
solely by his wife. At the time of Paul and Elsa’s marriage, the art
collection included over fifty pictures by such artists as Vincent van
Gogh, Henri Rousseau, and Picasso. Among these works were such
masterpieces as van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1889) and Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe (1905).
Paul
died of heart failure on May 10, 1935. Immediately following his
funeral and burial, his widow Elsa, his four sisters, and three of
their husbands (including one of the claimants’ grandparents) all
signed a legal protocol affirming the validity of the February contract
of inheritance and the 1927 gift of art and other matrimonial property
to Elsa. None of Paul’s four sisters (including one of the claimants’
grandmothers, who died in 1970 and who remained in touch with Elsa
after the war), ever claimed that Elsa was not the rightful owner of
the collection or that the contract of inheritance had simply been a
device to avoid potential Nazi confiscation.
The
five Picassos were recorded in the stock book of the Galleries
Thannhauser on August 31, 1935, with the indication that they were
already in the possession of the gallery’s Berlin branch. Thus, the
Galleries Thannhauser acquired the five pictures as a group sometime
between July 1934 and August 1935. The purchase prices paid by
Thannhauser for each of the five Picassos, including Le Moulin de la Galette, are not known.
Paul’s
widow, Elsa, who lived until 1986, never made a post-war compensation
or restitution claim for any of the five Picassos sold to Thannhauser,
nor did any of Paul’s sisters or their children.
Neither
the German state nor the Nazi Party confiscated or seized the
paintings, nor did they receive any of the proceeds from the sale of
the paintings. Neither Paul nor Elsa was restricted in any way from
freely moving or disposing of the paintings.
Paul and Elsa von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s Finances and Property
The
February 1935 contract of inheritance stated, for purposes of computing
the notary’s fee, that Paul had a net worth at the time of RM 1,700,000
(or $10,261,329, adjusted to current U.S. dollars based on the consumer
price index), excluding the value of the art collection and other
marital property previously given to Elsa. At the time of Paul’s death
in May 1935, the estate was valued for tax purposes at RM 847,201 (or
$5,141,646 converted to current U.S. dollars), also excluding the value
of the art collection and other marital property. The two valuations
were for different purposes and, as such, are not inconsistent.
Therefore, Paul's approximate net worth in 1935, exclusive of the art
collection and other marital property, was between $5 and $10 million
in current dollars. Furthermore, the value of the more than forty artworks and ninety
engravings remaining in the von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy collection when
it was appraised at some point between 1935 and 1945 was approximately
RM 400,000 (or approximately $2.5 million in current U.S. dollars).
Thus, the value of Le Moulin de la Galette
represented a negligible percentage of the total value of the von
Mendelssohn-Bartholdys’ net worth at the time the painting was sold.
At
the time of Paul’s death, Paul and Elsa owned three properties in
Germany: the family estate, Schloss Boernicke in Bernau near Berlin; a
city mansion on Alsenstrasse in central Berlin; and a farmhouse in
rural Bavaria, which Paul had purchased in autumn 1934. They also
leased a fourth property, the garden residence on the property of
Berlin’s Bellevue Palace (today the residence of the German President).
Mendelssohn & Co. suffered substantial losses in 1929 and 1930, likely as a result of the Great Depression. However, Mendelssohn & Co. earned a profit in 1934 and an increased profit in 1935.
Elsa’s Life after the War
Elsa remained a shareholder in Mendelssohn &
Co. until around 1941. In 1941, she married Imperial Count Max von
Kesselstatt, who was from a German aristocratic family and was a
Luftwaffe pilot during the war. Elsa and her second husband continued
to live on the von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy family estate, Schloss
Boernicke, until spring 1945 when the Russian army entered Germany.
Over
the twenty-year period following the war, Elsa sold artworks from the
von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy collection with the assistance of art dealers
who had been well known to her and her late husband Paul. Elsa died in
Ascona, Switzerland, in 1986. She survived all four of Paul’s sisters.
Elsa
made a vigorous but unsuccessful post-war claim for the loss of Schloss
Boernicke, which was overtaken by the Russian army in 1945 but, as
noted above, never made any claim for any of the five paintings by
Picasso.
Thannhauser and the Galleries Thannhauser
In
1919, Thannhauser opened a branch of his father’s Munich gallery, the
Moderne Galerie, in Lucerne, Switzerland, with Siegfried Rosengart.
Thannhauser opened a third branch of the gallery in Berlin in 1927.
As
a result of persecution by the Nazis, Thannhauser and his family, who
were Jewish, emigrated from Berlin to Paris in April 1937, where he
operated a private gallery. In order to leave Germany, Thannhauser was
compelled to liquidate his gallery's considerable inventory of classic
German and modern art and to pay the reichfluchtsteur
(exit tax). In December 1937, Thannhauser’s Berlin gallery formally
registered for closure due to pressures from the Nazi regime.
After
the fall of France and the occupation of Paris by the Germans, the
Thannhausers’ Parisian residence/gallery was plundered by the
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and Möbel-Aktion, two Nazi
looting agencies. The majority of the antique furniture, books, and art
and much of the gallery’s archives taken at that time have never been
recovered.
Thannhauser
and his family immigrated to the United States in December 1940. He
retained ownership of three former von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy collection
Picassos, including Le Moulin de la Galette. Thannhauser exhibited these Picassos at MoMA and elsewhere from the late 1930s onward. Paul’s relatives continued to do business with Thannhauser and
occasionally visited his New York gallery and residence, where the
Picassos were on prominent display.
In1963, Thannhauser announced his intention to bequeath the essential
works in his art collection to the Guggenheim Museum. From 1965 until
Thannhauser’s death in 1976, the works, including Le Moulin de la Galette, were placed on loan to the Guggenheim and continually exhibited in the museum’s newly-dedicated Thannhauser Wing. Le Moulin de la Galette
was accessioned into the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in 1978,
after Thannhauser met multiple times with Guggenheim Trustee Daniel
Catton Rich to answer questions from Guggenheim researchers about the
history and provenance of the works he was donating, including Le Moulin de la Galette.
From 1935 to the present, Le Moulin de la Galette
has been included in twenty-five exhibitions around the world and has
remained on permanent view, when not on loan, in the Thannhauser wing
at the Guggenheim. Numerous publications and exhibition catalogues have
listed Thannhauser and the Guggenheim as owners of Le Moulin de la Galette and often also mention Paul as a prior owner.
Thannhauser’s Restitution Efforts on Behalf of Others After World War II
After the war, Thannhauser was instrumental in reuniting art with collectors
who had entrusted him with the care of their artworks during the war.
In May 1939, Thannhauser arranged for the loan of several pictures from
various European private collectors to a traveling exhibition of
Impressionist and modern masterworks in South America and the United
States. Because of war conditions, the pictures did not return to
France after the exhibition closed but remained in storage at the
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., until 1945/46. Thannhauser
personally ensured the safe return of these paintings to their rightful
owners in Europe after the war.
In August 2005, a restitution case involving Picasso’s Femme en blanc (1922) was settled out of court. This Picasso had been sent to Thannhauser in Paris by Carlotta
Landsberg when she fled Berlin for South America in 1938 or 1939. The
picture was looted from Thannhauser’s gallery in Paris by the Nazis
during the ERR raids. Thannhauser informed the restitution authorities
that the picture did not belong to him, but rather to Landsberg. When
the painting resurfaced in 2001, Thannhauser’s post-war restitution
files helped to identify Landsberg as the rightful owner of the
painting.
Le Moulin de la Galette, autumn 1900 (detail). Oil on canvas, 34 3/4 x 45 1/2 inches (88.2 x 115.5 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 78.2514.34. © 2007 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York