Feldmann (II)

Recommendation regarding Feldmann (II)

Report number: RC 1.176

Advice type: Dutch National Art Collection

Advice date: 3 June 2022

Period of loss of ownership: 1933-1940

Original owner: Private individual

Location of loss of ownership: Outside the Netherlands

drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (photo: RMA)

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Summary

The Restitutions Committee has assessed the application of the heirs of Arthur Feldmann (1877-1941) for restitution of the drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara (1540-1545) by the artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst (I) (RP-T-1964-44) on the basis of the recent investigation by the Restitution Expertise Centre (ECR). According to the Committee, it has emerged from this investigation that in all probability the drawing came from the private collection of the Jewish collector Arthur Feldmann of Brno. It has also been established from the investigation and numerous witness statements that it is sufficiently plausible that Feldmann lost the drawing involuntarily on the day of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, 15 March 1939. On that day, the Gestapo raided the large detached family home of the Feldmann family and all possessions, including the art collection, were confiscated.

After the Second World War, the drawing was put up for sale by auction at Sotheby & Co in London on 16 October 1946. At the sale, the drawing by Coecke van Aelst was part of the same lot (no. 42) as the sketch Woman Standing with Veil by Hendrick Goltzius, about which the Committee issued advice on 15 May 2006 to grant the restitution application (RC 1.32). Both drawings were purchased by ‘Scharff’. After undergoing a number of ownership changes, the Coecke van Aelst drawing was purchased by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam in 1964.

The notes on the back of the drawing are an important indication that the drawing was previously in the Feldmann Collection. These notes are very probably in Arthur Feldmann’s handwriting, as emerges from an explanatory note by Dr Stijn Alsteens in the report by the Protection Worthiness Assessment Committee (TCB), which was asked for advice by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). Furthermore, the ECR investigation recently examined four annotated copies of Sotheby & Co’s sale catalogue that accompanied the auction in London in 1946. Three well-known art historians and a reputable art dealer noted that the drawing had belonged to the Feldman Collection.

The work is currently held by the Dutch State, which will never invoke acquisition in good faith. The Committee therefore did not investigate this aspect. The Committee has no task in the implementation of the Heritage Act and it therefore took no note whatsoever of the TCB’s advice. The Committee has advised the State Secretary for Culture and Media to restitute the drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara to the heirs of Arthur Feldmann.

Recommendation

On 13 December 2018, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (hereinafter referred to as the Minister) asked the Restitutions Committee (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) to issue advice. This recommendation concerns the application for restitution of the drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara (1540-1545), by the artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst (I) (hereinafter referred to as Coecke van Aelst). This case is registered at the Committee as RC 1.176. The restitution application was submitted by the heirs of the Jewish art collector Dr Arthur Feldmann (1877-1941) (hereinafter referred to as the Applicants). The art work is in the custody of the Dutch State and is currently in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, under inventory number RP-T-1964-44.

The Application

In a letter dated 13 December 2018, the Minister asked the Committee for advice about restitution of the Coecke van Aelst drawing. This was prompted by the application of Rebecca Friedman of the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, New York State Department of Financial Services (HCPO) on behalf of the joint heirs of Arthur Feldmann, as included in a letter to the Minister of 22 August 2018.

The Committee previously issued advice concerning a restitution application from the heirs of Arthur Feldmann. This recommendation, Feldmann (RC 1.32) of 15 May 2006, concerned restitution of the sketch Woman Standing with Veil by Hendrick Goltzius. In that case the Committee recommended restitution of this work to the heirs of Arthur Feldmann. The Minister accepted this recommendation.

2. The Committee’s Task

As a result of the request for advice, the Committee had research conducted into at least the following subjects:

original ownership and identification of the claimed work;
the circumstances of the loss of possession.

3. The Committee’s Procedure

In a letter of 22 August 2018, the Applicants asked the Minister to restitute the drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara by Coecke van Aelst.

In response to this request, on 13 December 2018 the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (hereinafter referred to as the RCE), on behalf of the Minister, asked the Committee to advise about this request. At the same time the RCE reported that, in the context of the Heritage Act, it had asked for advice about the drawing from the Protection Worthiness Assessment Committee (hereinafter referred to as the TCB). The TCB advice was issued on 10 October 2019 and it was sent by the RCE to the Committee by e-mail on 8 November 2019.

On 13 March 2019, the Committee asked the Restitution Expertise Centre (hereinafter referred to as the ECR) to launch an investigation into the facts. The results were recorded in a draft overview of the facts, which was sent to the RCE and the Applicants for additional information and/or comments with a letter dated 10 December 2021. The comments in the letters from the Applicants of 4 January and the RCE of 21 January were incorporated in the overview of the facts by the ECR.

On 4 August 2021, the Applicants consented to application of the assessment framework accompanying the Decree Establishing the Restitutions Committee of 15 April 2021 (hereinafter referred to as the assessment framework). The assessment framework is in the Appendix to the Decree Establishing the Restitutions Committee.

The final overview of the facts was adopted on 22 February 2022. The Applicants responded in an e-mail of 1 March 2022, and the RCE in an e-mail of 9 March 2022. They indicated that they have no further comments or additions.

On 29 March 2022, the Committee asked whether the Applicants needed a hearing. On 29 March 2022 they stated they did not want a hearing. In an e-mail of 1 April 2022, the RCE stated it would comply with the wishes of the Applicants and the Committee.

The Committee sent its draft recommendation to the Applicants and the RCE on 17 May 2022. In an email of 19 May 2022, the Applicants stated they had no comments. The RCE responded in an e-mail of 30 May 2022 with comments on a few typographical errors.

During the procedure, the Applicants were represented by Rebecca Friedman of the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, New York State Department of Financial Services (HCPO).

4. Requirements for the Substantive Handling of a Restitution Application (Section 1 of the Assessment Framework)

The Committee first of all investigated whether the restitution application can be substantively handled. The Committee established that:

a. this is not a case about which the Council for the Restoration of Rights or another court has issued a substantive ruling;
b. this is not a case about which legal proceedings have been instituted before a court;
c. this is not a case concerning an item of cultural value regarding which the Applicants or their legal predecessors have expressly waived their rights or the Applicants or their legal predecessors have already reached a settlement;
d. this is not a case about which the Restitutions Committee has already issued a recommendation or binding ruling;
e. it is not a requirement for all those entitled to have submitted the restitution application because the case concerns an item of cultural value that is held by the Dutch State.

In view of section 1 of the assessment framework, this means that the Committee handles the application substantively.

5. Establishing the Facts

The Feldmann Family

Dr Arthur Feldmann was born on 9 February 1877 in Vyškov (Wischau, South Moravia), the son of Leopold Feldmann and Katharina Feldmann-Berger. He studied law in Vienna and was awarded his doctorate in 1901. Around 1909 he founded his own law firm in Brno in the former Czechoslovakia. The firm was successful and had many clients in Vienna and elsewhere. In 1903 Feldmann married Gisela Hofmann. The couple had two children – Otto Feldmann and Karl Feldmann. From 1911 the family was registered as living in a large detached house at Hroznová (Traubengasse) 13, Brno. The older son, Otto, studied law in Prague and later on worked in his father’s firm. His younger brother, Karl, followed in his father’s footsteps by studying law in the law faculty in Vienna, but he did not complete the course.

Arthur Feldmann was well known as being prosperous. He owned property and a jewellery collection. He also had a substantial private collection of Old Master drawings. Some of those works had come from famous older collections. On the eve of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, Feldmann’s internationally renowned collection amounted to around 750 works, which were in his home in Brno.

Circumstances of the Loss of Possession

As a result of the deteriorating financial circumstances during the nineteen-thirties, Arthur Feldmann had to put up part of his art collection for sale by auction. This happened in 1934 at a sale held by H. Gilhofer & H. Ranschburg in Lucerne, Switzerland. It is known that the Goltzius drawing referred to earlier and restituted in 2006 was put into this sale. It remained unsold and therefore in Arthur Feldmann’s possession. It is not clear whether the Coecke van Aelst drawing was also put into this sale.

On 15 March 1939, the day Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, the Gestapo forced their way into the Feldmann family’s large detached home in Brno. All Feldmann’s possessions, including the substantial collection of Old Master drawings, were confiscated by the Gestapo. Feldmann and his wife were forced to leave their home within two hours and they were not able to take their possessions to a place of safety. They were only permitted to take a small suitcase with them. After his house had been seized, Feldmann was arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Brno.

Immediately after the German invasion, his law firm was closed down on the orders of the occupying forces. His licence to practise law was withdrawn and his bank accounts were frozen. This made Feldmann dependent on support from third parties for his living expenses. He was released in March 1940 as a result of vascular complaints. He died a year later on 16 March 1941.

The Provenance of the Coecke van Aelst Drawing

It remains unclear, due in part to the absence of a listing in the sale catalogue, whether the drawing was put up for sale at Gilhofer & Ranschburg in 1934. Karl Feldmann stated that his father sold no further works from his collection after this sale in 1934. Documentation dating from the Nazi era makes no mention of the drawing.

After the Second World War, the drawing, together with other works from the Feldmann Collection, was entered by ‘Bennett & Bennett’ on 16 October 1946 in the sale at Sotheby & Co in London. At the sale, the drawing by Coecke van Aelst was part of the same lot (no. 42) as the sketch Woman Standing with Veil by Hendrick Goltzius, about which the Committee issued recommendation on 15 May 2006 to grant the restitution application (RC 1.32). During this sale in 1946, the Goltzius drawing and the Coecke van Aelst drawing were purchased by (possibly Alfred) Scharff. In 1949 he sold the Goltzius drawing to the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (hereinafter referred to as the RMA). After undergoing a number of ownership changes, in 1964 the Coecke van Aelst drawing was purchased by the RMA together with five other drawings.

The Applicants’ Viewpoints

The Applicants state that the Coecke van Aelst drawing – together with all Arthur Feldmann’s possessions, including a large collection of Old Master drawings – was confiscated on 15 March 1939 by the Gestapo in his large home in Brno (Brünn, at the time Czechoslovakia, currently the Czech Republic).

In addition, in a letter of 22 August 2018 from Rebecca Friedman, the Applicants pointed out that the provenance of the Coecke van Aelst drawing is similar to the provenances of at least thirteen other drawings from the Feldmann Collection. The works concerned were apparently offered for sale at Sotheby’s in 1946, but not at the Gilhofer & Ranschburg sale in 1934.

According to the Applicants, the works were likewise not mentioned on the list of works from the Feldmann Collection that was compiled by Dr Heinrich Rosorius – the Treuhandler appointed by the Nazis to administer Feldmann’s estate. They were also not included in the rejected requests by Dr Feldmann and his son Karl to export the works to Palestine. According to the Applicants, the objects on this list represent only a fraction of the Feldmann Collection, which contained approximately 800 works. According to the Applicants, there is unfortunately no complete inventory of this extensive collection. As examples of the said thirteen drawings, the Applicants refer to four works that were restituted to them in the 2006-2017 period or for which ex gratia payments were made.

Regarding the Advice from the TCB

As a result of the application for restitution of the Coecke van Aelst drawing submitted by the Applicants, the RCE asked the TCB to conduct a protection worthiness assessment. The TCB assessment is aimed at formulating a statement about the importance of the object to Dutch cultural heritage. The TCB’s advice was passed on by the RCE and was added to the file RC 1.176. The TCB considers the drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara by Pieter Coecke van Aelst to be worthy of protection within the meaning of the Heritage Act. According to the TCB, the drawing is both an irreplaceable part of Dutch cultural heritage and indispensable on the grounds of its benchmark function.

The Committee points out that it has no task associated with implementation of the Heritage Act and that, on the grounds of this act, it is the Minister who takes the decision in respect of the TCB’s advice. In this context the Committee also refers to the report Onvervangbaar & Onmisbaar (Irreplaceable & Indispensable) of 8 March last, issued by the Commissie Collectie Nederland (Dutch Public Art Holdings Committee) and presented to the State Secretary for Culture and Media. In its report this committee, which was set up by the Council for Culture, takes the view that Nazi looted art that comes within the scope of the restitution policy is not eligible for protection against the undesirable export of cultural material.

6. Substantive Assessment of the Application

Ownership Requirements (Section 2 of the Assessment Framework)

The Committee’s first step in the substantive handling of the application is to assess whether it is highly likely that the Applicants or their legal successors are heirs of the original owner in accordance with inheritance law. To this end the Committee finds as follows:

Although it is not clear when and how Arthur Feldmann obtained the Coecke van Aelst drawing, and no documentation emerged during the investigation that places the work in the Feldmann Collection in the nineteen-thirties, in all probability the drawing came from the private collection of the Jewish collector Arthur Feldmann of Brno.

The notes on the back of the drawing are an important indication that the drawing was previously in the Feldmann Collection. These notes are very probably in Arthur Feldmann’s handwriting, as emerges from the report by the TCB based on the RCE report asking for advice. In an explanatory note the TCB states that its committee member Dr Stijn Alsteens is familiar with the handwriting from various drawings from Feldmann’s holdings.

The Committee decided not to launch a new, time-consuming investigation by an independent handwriting expert because the expert Alsteens, whom the TCB consulted, has skill and knowledge comparable with that of a graphologist or handwriting expert. In addition, the ECR investigation recently examined four annotated copies of Sotheby & Co’s sale catalogue that accompanied the auction in London in 1946. They contain notes to the effect that the drawing had belonged to the Feldmann Collection. It is plausible that the renowned art historians Burchard, Lugt and Gerson, and the art dealer and collector Stenman, who made these notes, were present at the sale’s viewing days and compared the handwriting on the back of the drawing with that on other drawings and as such recognized it as being Feldmann’s. They furthermore remarked that this drawing belonged to a group of works from the same Feldmann Collection that were included in the catalogue with consecutive lot numbers. The annotated reference to Feldmann may imply that he was the last known owner of the drawing.

It is moreover known from numerous witness statements that Feldmann’s private collection of Old Master drawings was confiscated by the Nazis in March 1939.

On the grounds of the relevant information from the investigation, the Committee has come to the conclusion that it is highly likely that the Coecke van Aelst drawing came from the private collection of the Jewish collector Arthur Feldmann of Brno. This means that the ownership requirement of section 2 of the assessment framework has been met.

The consequence of this is that the Committee now has to evaluate whether, with regard to the Coecke van Aelst drawing, there was involuntary loss of possession as a result of circumstances directly associated with the Nazi regime.

Involuntary Loss of Possession (Section 3 of the Assessment Framework)

Although no concrete sources were found that make it clear when and in what way the Coecke van Aelst drawing ceased to be in Arthur Feldmann’s possession, it emerged from the investigation that there are sufficient indications that the drawing concerned was part of a large collection of Old Master drawings that was confiscated on 15 March 1939 by the Gestapo in Arthur Feldmann’s home in Brno.

The Committee notes the following with regard to the above. During the investigation, no documentation dating from the period before and during the Second World War was found that referred to the Coecke van Aelst drawing. The earliest dated source that mentions the work is the Sotheby & Co sale catalogue in London in 1946. Yet it is sufficiently plausible that the drawing was in the Feldmann Collection, which was confiscated in March 1939 by the Gestapo.

An important indication for this is that the work was offered for sale shortly after the liberation in the same auction as various other works, which had been established previously as having been looted from the Feldmann Collection. It is stated in one of the annotated sale catalogues that lot numbers 40-88, including the Coecke van Aelst drawing, concerned the ‘Rest der Coll. Feldmann’ (‘rest of the Feldmann Collection’) in Brno. Three other sale catalogues also give this provenance. In 1946 the drawing was offered for sale by the firm of Bennett & Bennett, established on the Channel Islands. No information about this firm was found, but recent Belgian research has shown that the Channel Islands, occupied by the Nazis during and also after the war, was known as a transit point for looted art.

On the grounds of the relevant information from the investigation, the Committee has come to the conclusion that it is highly likely that the Coecke van Aelst drawing was confiscated in March 1939 by the Nazis from the private collection of Arthur Feldmann of Brno and that he consequently lost possession involuntarily.

Conclusion with Regard to the Restitution Application

The Committee concludes (i) that it is highly likely that the work The Marriage of Tobias and Sara by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (RP-T-1964-44) came from the private collection of the Jewish collector Arthur Feldmann. The Committee also concludes (ii) that in view of criterion 3.1 of the assessment framework, it has to be assumed that the loss of possession by Arthur Feldmann was involuntary. In view of section 3 under point 2 of the assessment framework, this leads to the conclusion that the Committee advises to restitute the work to the heirs of Arthur Feldmann.

7. Recommendation

The Restitutions Committee advises the State Secretary for Culture and Media to restitute the drawing The Marriage of Tobias and Sara by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (RP-T-1964-44) to the heirs of Arthur Feldmann.

Adopted on 3 June 2022 by J. Kohnstamm (Chair), J.F. Cohen, S.G. Cohen-Willner, J.H. van Kreveld, D. Oostinga, E.H. Swaab (Vice-Chair) and C.C. Wesselink, and signed by the Chair and the Secretary.

(J. Kohnstamm, Chair) (E.M. van Sterkenburg, Secretary)

Related recommendation

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Feldmann (I)

Drawing by Hendrick Goltzius on the back of a playing card

Relevant press release