[MSN] Secret history of Van Gogh picture

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

May 07, 2006 


Secret history of Van Gogh picture
Karin Goodwin
 
 
THE TRUE story of a painting by Vincent van Gogh, thought to have been
looted by the Nazis, has been uncovered by the curator of a Scottish
exhibition of the Dutch artist’s work. 
Martin Bailey, curator of Van Gogh and Britain, on display at the National
Galleries of Scotland this summer, turned detective to uncover the secret
history of Restaurant de la Sirène at Asnières. 
 
The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford inherited the work in the early 1970s. Its
uncertain past meant it was included in a list drawn up for the UK
government’s spoliation panel, detailing all works possibly plundered by the
Nazis. 

In the course of his research Bailey discovered that the painting matched a
description of a work featured in The Temple, an autobiographical novel
written by the English writer Stephen Spender in Germany in the 1930s but
not published until 1988. 

Though the painting was named in the book as Still Life with Irises, Bailey
recognised it as the work depicting a popular daytripper’s restaurant in the
suburb of Asnières, just outside Paris. 

He discovered that Spender had first seen the work, aged 20, when he visited
the home of Valerie Alport, his partner’s mother, in Hamburg. Alport, a
wealthy Jewish artist and art collector with avant garde tastes, bought the
work in the 1920s when Van Gogh’s work first became popular with German
collectors. 

Forced to flee Germany with her son in 1937, Bailey discovered that, rather
than lose the work, she arranged to have it transported to the UK. The work,
painted in 1887, was then passed to her son, who left it to the Ashmolean in
his will. 

With its origins now settled, it has been removed from the spoliation panel
list. “The provenance of the picture was not known and so there were
concerns that it could have been looted from Nazi Germany,” said Bailey.
“With the help of Stephen Spender’s book, I tracked it down to a Hamburg
dealer.” 

Dr John Whiteley, a spokesman for the Ashmolean Museum said: “Martin Bailey
has uncovered some delightful detail and we are very pleased this story has
come to light.”
 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/