The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Provenance
  Until 1934

  Baron Edmond de Rothschild [1845-1934], Paris, by descent to his son, Maurice de Rothschild

  1934-1940

  Maurice de Rothschild [1881-1957], Paris, confiscated by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg

  1940-

  In possession of the Nazis

  Until 1974

  Rothschild Family, to P. & D. Colnaghi

  1974-1979

  (P. & D. Colnaghi, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

  1979-

  The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

  Provenance Footnotes

  1 The provenance of the Boucher painting prior to Baron Edmond de Rothschild, who likely acquired it in the late nineteenth century, is unknown.   The painting does not appear in Ananoff’s catalogue raisonné, L’opera completa di Boucher (1980), nor was it published in any monographs, exhibition catalogues, or other art historical literature prior to CMA’s acquisition in 1979.  The reason for this absence of a publication history is unclear, as the Ananoff/Wildenstein François Boucher catalogue of 1976 does include a number of other Boucher paintings in Edmond’s collection – so his possession of several works by Boucher was certainly known.  

  2 1 Maurice’s collection, housed in his Paris mansion, was seized by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg on September 6, 1940.

  3 1The Boucher was confiscated from Maurice’s collection in Paris in early September 1940 by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg.  The painting, titled in ERR records “Brunnendekoration mit Quellnymphe” [“Fountain decoration with nymph at a spring”], was taken to the Jeu de Paume and assigned ERR no. 252.  The painting appears on the List of Confiscated Works of Art, Primarily from the Rothschild Collections, Selected for Hitler, February 1941 as No. 19:  “Boucher, Nymph at the Spring” (ERR-Interrogation Reports (carbon copy).  Subject Files.  Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historical Monuments in War Areas (The Roberts Commission), 1943-1946. Record Group 239. M1944, roll 85, page 23, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/301074995, retrieved June 15, 2016). On February 5, 1941, Hitler selected the Boucher for the Linz collection from among the works exhibited at the Jeu de Paume; the painting was designated Linz no. 1583. Hitler’s selection was then shipped on February 8, 1941 to the Führerbau in Munich on Goering’s special train; on the list documenting Der Kisten der für den Führer bestimmten Gemälde (the crates of paintings selected for the Führer), the Boucher is No. 19, “Brunnendekoration mit Quellnymphe (aus Sammlung Rothschild R 252).” A pencil notation, “Konnten nicht verladen warden” is written in next to the Cleveland Boucher and next to Boucher’s Portrait of Madame Pompadour, also confiscated from Rothschild (R 251) (Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR): List Of Art Treasures Taken By Hitler.  Restitution Research Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.  M1946, roll 124, page 25, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/283750835, retrieved June 15, 2016).  This notation translates to “could not be loaded” and refers to the fact that the two Bouchers, as well as four tapestries, all from the Rothschild collection, were too large to be accommodated on the train and were instead sent to Füssen (Einsatzstab Rosenberg.  Subject files.  Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historical Monuments in War Areas (The Roberts Commission), 1943-1946.  Record Group 239.  M1946, roll 85, page 127, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/283750835, retrieved July 11, 2013).  A document listing Des caisses de tableaux pour le Führer, 8.2.1941 indicates that Caisse no. H3, containing both R 251 and R 252, was “manquante,” or “missing,” a status that likely stems from the paintings’ absence from the main shipment to the Führerbau (7d 4 1945 [2 of 2]. General Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): OMGUS Headquarters Records, 1938-1951.  Record Group 260.  M1941, roll 14, page 94, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/291863414/, retrieved June 21, 2016).  Another document, however, says that the statement that these six works were sent to Füssen is erroneous, claiming instead that these items (Linz nos. 1582-1587) were in fact received at the Führerbau on March 20, 1941, two weeks after the main shipment arrived on Goering’s train (Linz Museum: Consolidated Interrogation Report (CIR) No. 4.  Restitution Research Records. Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260. M1946, roll 139, page 70, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/283755480, retrieved July 25, 2013).  In 1944 most of the Führerbau shipment was transferred to Alt Aussee (Oss Report Einsatzstab Rosenberg 15 Aug 1945.  Subject files.  Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historical Monuments in War Areas (The Roberts Commission), 1943-1946.  Record Group 239.  M1944, roll 85, page 28, Fold3.com, (https://www.fold3.com/image/301075111, retrieved June 15, 2016).  The Boucher, however, was instead shipped to Kremsmünster on October 17, 1944 (C. I. R. # 4 - Linz; Hitler's Museum And Library.  Consolidated Interrogation Reports. Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historical Monuments in War Areas (The Roberts Commission), 1943-1946.   Record Group 239. M1944, roll 94, page 70, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/270236794, retrieved June 29, 2016). The List of the large-sized paintings transferred from Kremsmünster to the repository Thürntal (LF V I5/569) contains “K-no. 3/Linz no. 1583, Boucher, Wall-decoration with nymphs, canvas, signed, 267 x 220,” documenting the painting’s presence at Kremsmünster and subsequent transfer to Thürntal (Thürntal and Linz Items, Otto Demus.  Administrative Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.   National Archives Identifier 3725253.  M1946, roll 13, page 11, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/270333544, retrieved June 23, 2015).  The contents of the repository of Castle Thürntal included objects selected for Linz that were too large to be brought into the salt mine at Alt Aussee, large objects from the collections of Alphons and Louis von Rothschild, and large objects that had been stored at Kremsmünster and Hohenfurth (Repositories, correspondence: Austria.  Records Relating To The Status Of Monuments, Museums, And Archives.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.  M1946, roll 98, page 5, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/269978331, retrieved June 15, 2016).The Verzeichnis der 100 in Thürntal verwahrt gewesenen Bilder lists “K-nr. 3, Boucher.  Brunnendekoration mit Quellnymphen, 267 x 220.” (Austria claims: memoranda.  Restitution Claim Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.  M1946, roll 35, page 93, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/269944307, retrieved Oct. 30, 2014).  Additionally, the list of the contents of Wagen No. 36, 26, 27 aus Kremsmünster jetzt Thürntal shows that Wagen nr. 27 contained K nr. 3, with a notation to the left of the “3” that says “Wien" (Austria Claims: Memoranda. Restitution Claim Records. Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260. M1946, roll 35, page 100, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/269944340, retrieved June 27, 2013).  A letter from Otto Demus, president of the Bundesdenkmalamt  (Federal Monuments Office, Austria),  to Lane Faison, director of the Munich Central Collecting Point, of June 2, 1951 regarding the “100 Bilder Thürntal Verbleib” notes that wagons 26 and 27 contained works stored at Thürntal, but that the meaning of the “Wien” notation was unclear (Austria Claims: Memoranda. Restitution Claim Records. Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points (“Ardelia Hall Collection”): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260. M1946, roll 35, page 101, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/269944344, retrieved July 8, 2013).  At this point, the painting’s trail goes cold.  The Linz documentation indicates the painting was in France at the end of the war, having arrived there from Thürntal; however, its path from Thürntal to France is unknown at this point. One possibility is suggested by Hanns Löhr in his book, Das Braune Haus der Kunst. Hitler und der Sonderauftrag Linz: Visionen, Verbrechen, Verluste (2005, page 159): the Thürntal depot was located in the Soviet-occupied zone of the “Alpenrepublik” and was controlled by the Red Army.  Some works that originated in France or the Netherlands were given directly back, from Thürntal, to their countries of origin by the Soviets.  A handwritten notation on the List of the large-sized paintings transferred from Kremsmünster to the repository Thürntal (which includes the Boucher) may support this possibility: “total 81 [objects] held by the Russians]” (Thürntal and Linz Items, Otto Demus.  Administrative Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.   National Archives Identifier 3725253.  M1946, roll 13, page 11, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/270333544, retrieved June 23, 2015).A letter of June 12, 1951 from Lane Faison to Otto Demus regarding the Thürntal paintings refers to 17 paintings of the original total of 100 stored at Thürntal that appear to have been burned at St. Agatha or otherwise lost (Correspondence, General: June 1951-August 1951.  Administrative Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.   National Archives Identifier 3725253.  M1946, roll 4, page 50, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/270050360, retrieved June 23, 2015). He writes that these 17 paintings came from the collection of, among others, Alphons and Louis von Rothschild.  The Boucher is listed in this “unaccounted-for group of 17” as coming from the Alphons von Rothschild collection (Correspondence, General: June 1951-August 1951.  Administrative Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.   National Archives Identifier 3725253.  M1946, roll 4, page 51, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/2700503607, retrieved June 23, 2015).This is likely an error, as the ERR number – R 252 – clearly indicates that the painting was confiscated from Maurice’s collection.  It is worth noting, however, that the CMA Boucher does not appear on the Liste des tableaux appartenant au Baron Maurice de Rothschild et pillés par les Allemands (it does include other Bouchers, however), which includes paintings either confiscated from his home at 41 Faubourg Saint-Honoré or at his depot at Chateau-Lafite. This may be because its current whereabouts were unknown at the time this list was compiled (F224 Rothschild, Maurice Baron De.  Cultural Property Claim Applications.  Records of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Section of the Preparations and Restitution Branch, OMGUS, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260.   National Archives Identifier 1571289.  M1949, roll 13, page 9, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/292890382, retrieved July 8, 2013).  It is possible the confusion as to which Rothschild collection the Boucher belonged is due to the existence of a painting attributed to the School of Boucher called Nymphs at a Fountain or Scene Representing Nymphs, confiscated from the collection of Alphons von Rothschild.  This painting is No. 6 on the List of unidentified paintings brought in from Castle Ennsegg to the Steinerne Saal (French Claims.  Records Relating to Claims.  Records of the Reparations and Restitutions Branch of the U.S. Allied Commission for Austria (USACA) Section, 1945-1950.  Record Group 260. M1926, roll 48, page 59, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/274323278, retrieved June 23, 2014).  In a letter to Walter G. Loehr, Chief of the Reparations, Deliveries, and Restitutions Branch of USACA dated May 18, 1951, listed as coming from a Paris collection; Alphons’s collection would have originated in Vienna (Thürntal And Linz Items, Otto Demus.  Administrative Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260. M1946, roll 13, page 50, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/270333609, retrieved July 8, 2013).  That these two paintings were confused is further supported by the fact that the CMA Boucher has, in the Linz database, a Munich Central Collecting Point number of “1646(?),” when it does not seem that the CMA Boucher ever passed through the Collecting Point. In fact, the School of Boucher painting has a K-nr. of 1646 according to the Liste der aus dem Depot Schloss Ennsegg (Miscellaneous Austrian Art. Records Relating to Claims.  Records of the Reparations and Restitutions Branch of the U.S. Allied Commission for Austria (USACA) Section, 1945-1950.  Record Group 260. M1926, roll 5, page 200, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/274298133, retrieved June 27, 2016).  The painting also appears on the Verzeichnis der am 13.3.1947 aus dem Depot St. Agatha bei Goisern nach Ennsegg verbrachten Kunstgeggenstände (French Claims.  Records Relating to Claims.  Records of the Reparations and Restitutions Branch of the U.S. Allied Commission for Austria (USACA) Section, 1945-1950.  Record Group 260. M1926, roll 48, page 56, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/274323265, retrieved June 23, 2014).  This document (which titles the painting Scene mit Nymphen, Silenen, und Putten) has a notation reading, “R to France USACA" (Thürntal And Linz Items, Otto Demus.  Administrative Records. Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260, M1946, roll 13, page 5, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/115/270333529, retrieved June 29, 2016).  Indeed, a letter from the Office of the United States High Commissioner for Austria of May 15, 1951 states: “The records of the former RD&R Division of USACA show that the following objects have been restituted,” and this list includes the School of Boucher painting, which was restituted to the French government (Thürntal And Linz Items, Otto Demus.  Administrative Records.  Records Concerning the Central Collecting Points ("Ardelia Hall Collection"): Munich Central Collecting Point, 1945-1951.  Record Group 260. National Archives Identifier 3725253.  M1946, roll 13, page 48, Fold3.com, https://www.fold3.com/image/270333607, retrieved June 23, 2014).    

  4 1 Because Richard Herner, director of P. & D. Colnaghi, wrote in 1979 to CMA curator William Talbot that his gallery had in 1974 purchased the painting from a member of the Rothschild family who wished to remain anonymous,  the painting undoubtedly made its way back to the family, probably to Maurice, sometime after the war.  After Maurice died in 1957, the Boucher may have passed to his widow, Noémie Halphen (1888-1968) or to his son, Edmond Adolphe de Rothschild (1926-1997), the latter of whom may have sold it to Colnaghi.  Colnaghi’s (partially damaged) file on the painting suggests that the Boucher came to the UK from a Lichtenstein entity named the Galleria Bernini, but the museum has been unable to confirm the exact nature of its involvement, the existence of this gallery as a commercial concern, or its connection to the painting. Colnaghi’s file also notes that the painting passed through Sotheby’s, London; however, this claim appears to be erroneous, as Sotheby’s confirmed that its files contain no record of the Boucher ever having passed through the auction house in any capacity.  

  5 1It seems from correspondence between Colnaghi and CMA that Herner first mentions the Boucher to Sherman Lee in December 1975, after having already discussed two other paintings by Boucher in which Lee was interested but that ultimately went to the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.  Herner’s correspondence with Lee notes that the first two Bouchers were received by Colnaghi on commission from the Rothschilds, but does not indicate whether the CMA Boucher was acquired as part of the same transaction.  The eventual purchase of the painting by Lee took place in September 1979; an invoice dated September 28, 1979 lists the Rothschild provenance and titles the painting, “Cupidon offrant une pomme à Venus.”  While with Colnaghi, the painting was treated by conservator Robert Shepherd in London. As WWII-era photographs show, the canvas had a rounded top and an arch at bottom center, probably allowing the work to function as an overdoor. Eighteen centimeters of the rounded top and thirteen centimeters at the lower right and left were clearly a later addition, added at an unknown date after Boucher painted the work. Shepherd removed the rounded top and the areas at the lower right and left, then filled the extreme top corners and shallow arch remaining at the bottom. The painting thereby returned to a rectangular format and was cleaned and relined.
• Citations
  Cultural Plunder by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg: Database of Art Objects at the Jeu de Paume. www.errproject.org

  Deutsches Historisches Museum, Datenbank "Sammlung des Sonderauftrages Linz.” www.dhm.de

  The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Reproduced: p. 54; Mentioned: p. 53-56

  "Year in Review Exhibition", Dialogue, (Jan./Feb. 1980). p. 39

  "Year in Review," University Circle Highlights (Feb. 1980). p. 1

  Cleveland Museum of Art, “Thomas L. Fawick Memorial Collection is on View in Year in Review Exhibition,” February 7, 1980, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. archive.org

  Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1979." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 67, no. 3 (1980): 58-99. Reproduced: cover; Mentioned: p. 58 www.jstor.org

  "Supplement, March 1980," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, (March 1980). p. 38, fig. 194

  Bailey, Colin B. The First Painters of the King: French Royal Taste from Louis XIV to the Revolution. New York, N.Y.: Stair Sainty Matthiesen, 1985. p. 1287, no. 18

  Feliciano, Hector. The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art. New York: Basic Books, 1997.

  Schwarz, Birgit. Hitlers Museum: die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz : Dokumente zum "Führermuseum". Wien: Böhlau, 2004.

  Jackall, Yuriko. America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting. Chicago, IL: Art Stock Books, Independent Publishers Group, 2017. p. 229 Reproduced: P. 229, pl. 51
• Exhibition History
  America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (May 21-August 20, 2017).

  Year in Review: 1979. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 13-March 9, 1980).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Fountain of Venus|url=false|author=François Boucher|year=1756|access-date=19 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}