[MSN] PRESS RELEASE. Lost 16th century 'Portrait of a Lady with a dog' returns to the Gemäldegalerie Berlin after 60 years

Sat Jun 3 00:11:50 CEST 2006

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From: mailman-bounces at te.verweg.com [mailto:mailman-bounces at te.verweg.com]
On Behalf Of Jennifer Anderson
Sent: 02 June 2006 13:26
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Subject: Press Release

PRESS RELEASE

Lost 16th century ‘Portrait of a Lady with a dog’ returns to the 

Gemäldegalerie Berlin after 60 years

31 May 2006: The Commission for Looted Art in Europe and the Prussian
Cultural Heritage Foundation are delighted to announce that a small 16th
century Florentine painting lost in the turmoil of the Second World War has
today been returned to the Berlin Gemäldegalerie by the Commission for
Looted Art and Charles Wheeler.  This is the first time that a work
published in the Gemäldegalerie’s catalogue of war losses has been
identified and returned to the Berlin museum. 

The painting is a portrait of Eleonora of Toledo (1522-1562), the daughter
of the Neapolitan viceroy and wife of the first Duke of Florence, Cosimo di
Medici I.  It is attributed to Alessandro Allori (1535-1607), a pupil and
foster son of the court painter Agnolo Bronzino, the author of a famous
portrait of Eleonora with her son in the Uffizi Gallery.  

Klaus-Dieter Lehmann, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
which comprises all the state museums of Berlin, declared at the handover:
“The return of this painting today gives us hope that other lost paintings
will be returned.  I am very pleased that the initiative of others has
enabled the return of this painting today.  The Foundation itself takes the
initiative in identifying and returning Nazi looted works of art to their
rightful owners.  I thank the Commission for Looted Art for its good work.”

“We are delighted to have made possible the identification and return of
this lovely painting”, said Anne Webber, Co-chair of the Commission. “This
is the fourth of Germany’s war losses whose return we have enabled in the
last six months.   We look forward to working together with the Foundation
and other German institutions to achieve similar successes in the future,
both with German wartime losses and Nazi looted art, the main focus of our
work.”

The picture, painted on poplar wood, which at 16cm x 12cm is the size of the
palm of a hand, has a varied history of which only elements are known.
Initially in the collection of the Berlin Print Rooms, it was assigned to
the Gemäldegalerie in 1894.  The painting was photographed in 1939, the year
in which the museums were closed and the transfers into wartime storage
began, and was noted as missing in 1944.   Believed lost or destroyed,  for
the past 50 years it has been safe in the possession of Charles Wheeler, one
of Britain’s most distinguished journalists and broadcasters.

In the 1950s Charles Wheeler was the Berlin correspondent of the BBC’s
German Service.  His work brought him into daily contact with listeners in
the Soviet Occupation Zone, many of whom were regular visitors to his
office.  One of them, a farmer from near Frankfurt an der Oder, presented
him with the painting as a wedding gift, claiming he had in turn received it
from a Russian soldier in barter.  Wheeler would never see the correspondent
again and the painting has remained with him ever since, unattributed but
much loved.
For many years Wheeler wondered about the painting’s true story, but the
opportunity to reveal its origins only arrived last year when he went to see
Anne Webber during research for a BBC programme about the loss of works of
art during the Second World War and showed her the painting.  He expressed
his wish to restore it to its rightful owners if they could be found.  Ms
Webber and her team undertook research on the painting and contacted a
number of German museums and research bodies – and the Gemäldegalerie
recognised the painting lost for over 60 years.  With the help of its
catalogue of losses, the provenance of the painting was confirmed and the
Commission arranged its return.   

The painting

Eleonora of Toledo, as the wife of Cosimo I whom she married at the age of
17, lived through the most glittering period in Florence.   Her husband, the
Duke of Florence, had the Uffizi Palace built, where their son Francesco I
was later to establish the famous gallery.  Cosimo instructed Giorgio Vasari
to transform the Palazzo Vecchio into a splendid residence where Eleonora
had an apartment with its own chapel.   Eleonora took an active part in
Cosimo’s business activities: her husband transferred the affairs of the
court to her in his periods of absence, an unusual gesture at that period.
In 1549 he bought the Palazzo Pitti for his wife and it became the formal
seat of the Grand-Ducal family and the site of the Boboli gardens.    

The portrait is of high quality, skilfully painted and rich in detail.  It
depicts Eleonora as a young woman, and was probably not painted
contemporaneously.  It is possible that it was painted after her death in
the 1570s, working from the many portraits of her.   Its small size suggests
its part in a series of family portraits.   

The Berlin Catalogue of Losses

The catalogue Dokumentation der Verluste, Band I, Gemäldegalerie, published
in 1995, documents over 400 missing works of art.  The war losses of the
State Museums of Berlin are online at www.lostart.de. 

The Commission for Looted Art in Europe

The Commission is a non-profit expert body which represents individuals,
museums and governments worldwide in the research, identification and
recovery of looted cultural property.  

Contact Information:

76 Gloucester Place

London W1U 6HJ

Tel: +44 (0)20 7487 3401

Fax: +44 (0)20 7487 4211

www.lootedartcommission.com