Drawing “Landscape with a rock” |
Collection of Arthur Feldmann
Author:
Julia Eßl
Julia Eßl
The Feldmann Collection
When the Albertina acquired the pen and ink drawing Landschaft mit einem Felsblock (Landscape with a Rock) (ex-Inv. 40000) from the Dorotheum in Vienna in March 1989, there were few references to its provenance in the catalog. The collector's notes given were from the 17th and 18th centuries, including one by the British painter Peter Lely (1618–1680). No recent or immediate information about the provenance had survived. However, as it turned out, in the 1930s the sheet was part of the renowned collection of old master drawings of Arthur Feldmann (1877–1941), a lawyer then based in Brno and also active in Vienna.
This provenance was uncovered by Feldmann's grandson, Uri Arthur Peled-Feldmann. He had made it his task to bring the art collection of his grandfather, who had died in March 1941 as a result of arterial disease that had lasted for years, which once comprised around 800 works and had been expropriated by the Nazi regime, back into the consciousness of collectors, museums and all those interested in art and history. Through years of research, he finally succeeded in locating several sheets of the former collection in museums, other institutions and private collections. He also came across the sheet acquired by the Albertina, whose history is exemplary for the persecution, expulsion and murder of Jews. Due to the previous ownership of this work from the Feldmann Collection, it was recommended for restitution at the 43rd meeting of the Art Restitution Advisory Board on October 3, 2008.
The knowledge gained about the Feldmann Collection soon revealed that the collector had once been closely connected with the Albertina. For Feldmann had enlisted the support of knowledgeable experts to build up his collection - among them Otto Benesch (1896–1964), the later director of the Albertina (from 1947 to 1961), who was instrumental in assembling the Feldmann collection. Benesch had repeatedly visited Feldmann in his Brno villa and studied the collection in detail. This acquaintance also developed to the benefit of the museum. The show Watteau und sein Kreis (Watteau and his circle), curated by Benesch in the fall of 1934, and the exhibition Hans Baldung Grien, shown the following spring, were supplemented by important loans from Feldmann. Benesch, as well as other Albertina staff members, repeatedly drew on works from the Feldmann Collection as comparative examples in their scholary contibutions or devoted in-depth scholarly studies to them. For example, the art historian Lili Fröhlich-Bum, who worked at the Albertina, had already held the sheet mentioned at the beginning in her hands in 1928 and attributed it to the Italian artist Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo. The art historian Wilhelm Suida - also an advisor to Feldmann - classified the drawing in the work of Titian, Benesch thought of the Titian school. That the sheet probably originated from Titian's circle was assumed even after its restitution - in the meantime the sheet was considered to be a work of the Flemish school.
Uri Peled-Feldmann has been able to track down more than 200 works over the past 25 years, often drawing on the Albertina's extensive library holdings and art historical expertise. This friendly connection to the house and to Vienna, which has existed over decades and generations, was ultimately decisive in the grandson bequeathing some 30 sheets to the Albertina in memory of his grandfather in 2011 and 2012. In 2015, the donation by Uri Peled-Feldmann was used as an opportunity to honor the collector Arthur Feldmann with the exhibition Spurensuche. Die Sammlung Arthur Feldmann und die Albertina in the Albertina's State Rooms and to commemorate the injustice done to him. The accompanying publication appeared as a special volume in the series of publications of the Commission for Provenance Research in cooperation with the Albertina and is available as an open access publication: https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205201571. In addition, there is an entry in the Lexicon of Austrian Provenance Research: https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/feldmann-arthur.
The Feldmann Collection represents just one of many collectors' histories and personalities whose blurred traces have been recovered, researched and documented through provenance research. After all, the works of art that are publicly accessible to everyone in museums and collections today have often wandered through epochs, countries and hands after their creation and are thus forever linked to them as part of their history.
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When the Albertina acquired the pen and ink drawing Landschaft mit einem Felsblock (Landscape with a Rock) (ex-Inv. 40000) from the Dorotheum in Vienna in March 1989, there were few references to its provenance in the catalog. The collector's notes given were from the 17th and 18th centuries, including one by the British painter Peter Lely (1618–1680). No recent or immediate information about the provenance had survived. However, as it turned out, in the 1930s the sheet was part of the renowned collection of old master drawings of Arthur Feldmann (1877–1941), a lawyer then based in Brno and also active in Vienna.
This provenance was uncovered by Feldmann's grandson, Uri Arthur Peled-Feldmann. He had made it his task to bring the art collection of his grandfather, who had died in March 1941 as a result of arterial disease that had lasted for years, which once comprised around 800 works and had been expropriated by the Nazi regime, back into the consciousness of collectors, museums and all those interested in art and history. Through years of research, he finally succeeded in locating several sheets of the former collection in museums, other institutions and private collections. He also came across the sheet acquired by the Albertina, whose history is exemplary for the persecution, expulsion and murder of Jews. Due to the previous ownership of this work from the Feldmann Collection, it was recommended for restitution at the 43rd meeting of the Art Restitution Advisory Board on October 3, 2008.
The knowledge gained about the Feldmann Collection soon revealed that the collector had once been closely connected with the Albertina. For Feldmann had enlisted the support of knowledgeable experts to build up his collection - among them Otto Benesch (1896–1964), the later director of the Albertina (from 1947 to 1961), who was instrumental in assembling the Feldmann collection. Benesch had repeatedly visited Feldmann in his Brno villa and studied the collection in detail. This acquaintance also developed to the benefit of the museum. The show Watteau und sein Kreis (Watteau and his circle), curated by Benesch in the fall of 1934, and the exhibition Hans Baldung Grien, shown the following spring, were supplemented by important loans from Feldmann. Benesch, as well as other Albertina staff members, repeatedly drew on works from the Feldmann Collection as comparative examples in their scholary contibutions or devoted in-depth scholarly studies to them. For example, the art historian Lili Fröhlich-Bum, who worked at the Albertina, had already held the sheet mentioned at the beginning in her hands in 1928 and attributed it to the Italian artist Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo. The art historian Wilhelm Suida - also an advisor to Feldmann - classified the drawing in the work of Titian, Benesch thought of the Titian school. That the sheet probably originated from Titian's circle was assumed even after its restitution - in the meantime the sheet was considered to be a work of the Flemish school.
Uri Peled-Feldmann has been able to track down more than 200 works over the past 25 years, often drawing on the Albertina's extensive library holdings and art historical expertise. This friendly connection to the house and to Vienna, which has existed over decades and generations, was ultimately decisive in the grandson bequeathing some 30 sheets to the Albertina in memory of his grandfather in 2011 and 2012. In 2015, the donation by Uri Peled-Feldmann was used as an opportunity to honor the collector Arthur Feldmann with the exhibition Spurensuche. Die Sammlung Arthur Feldmann und die Albertina in the Albertina's State Rooms and to commemorate the injustice done to him. The accompanying publication appeared as a special volume in the series of publications of the Commission for Provenance Research in cooperation with the Albertina and is available as an open access publication: https://doi.org/10.7767/9783205201571. In addition, there is an entry in the Lexicon of Austrian Provenance Research: https://www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org/feldmann-arthur.
The Feldmann Collection represents just one of many collectors' histories and personalities whose blurred traces have been recovered, researched and documented through provenance research. After all, the works of art that are publicly accessible to everyone in museums and collections today have often wandered through epochs, countries and hands after their creation and are thus forever linked to them as part of their history.
Author: Julia Eßl, Provenance Researcher on behalf of the Commission for Provenance Research
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