NORTHERN NETHERLANDISH SCHOOL,[1] 1632
Portrait of a Musician Playing a Bagpipe
inscribed AE. s (with the A and E conjoined) SUE 57 and dated A. o 1632 in the upper center
oil on panel
15 ¾ x 11 ¾ inches (40 x 30 cm.)
PROVENANCE
Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf
Die Bestande der Galerie Stern – Düsseldorf (The Stock of Galerie Stern), no. 392, Lempertz, Cologne, November 13, 1937, lot 220, plate 42, illustrated (as Utrecht Master, 1632)
Wallraf Collection, Rheydt, Germany and thus by decent in the family until 2007 when consigned to
Lempertz, Cologne, November 17, 2007, lot 1173, illustrated (as Flemish Master, 17th Century) where purchased by
Philip Mould, Ltd., London from whom acquired by
Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts, New York, 2008
Restituted to the Estate of Dr. Max Stern, April 2009
Max Stern Art Restitution Project, Concordia University, Montreal, 2009 – until the present time
EXHIBITED
Montreal, Concordia University, Auktion 392, Reclaiming the Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf, October 20 – November 12, 2006 (via photograph as it was still missing) & traveling to New York, Yeshiva University Museum, Leo Baeck Institute, Spring 2007; London, Ben Uri Gallery and Museum, September 16, 2007 – November 25, 2007; Jerusalem, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, June 2008; and Hereford, Hereford Museum & Art Gallery, January 17 – March 7, 2009
Montreal, Montreal Museum of Arts, May 2009 – 2010
LITERATURE
Marion Maneker, “The Long Chain of Restitution”, Art Market Monitor, April 20, 2009
James Barron & Sewell Chan, “After 70 years, Painting Seized by the Nazis is Returned”, The New York Times, April 21, 2009, p. A20, illustrated
Catherine Hickley, “U.S. Seizes Old Master Lost in Nazi-Era Forced Sale”, Bloomberg, April 21, 2009
“Painting sold under Nazis, returned to owner’s estate”, CNN, April 21, 2009, illustrated
Todd W. Sigety, “Nazi Painting from Forced Sale Returned”, Appraiser Workshops, April 21, 2009, illustrated
Sewel Chan, “A Postwar Reversal in Nazi-Ordered Art Sale”, New York Times, April 21, 2009, illustrated
“United States Returns Painting, Expropriated by Nazis, To the Estate of its Rightful Owner Dr. Max Stern”, United States Attorney Southern District of New York, New York, April 21, 2009
Rich Shapiro, “After 70 years painting stolen by the Nazis from art dealer Max Stern returned”, Daily News, New York, April 21, 2009, illustrated
“Holocaust Claims Processing Office and U.S. Customs Mark Holocaust Remembrance Day with Return of 17th century Painting”, Political Apologies and Reparations, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada, April 21, 2009
“ICE Agents Seize Old Master”, Center For Art Law, April 22, 2009
“Painting, sold under Nazis, returned to owner’s estate”, 4VF – Daily News Channel, April 22, 2009
Alain Truong, “Portrait of a Musician Playing a Bagpipe belonged to the late Jewish art dealer Max Stern”, Eloge de l’Art, April 22, 2009, illustrated
Jonathan Perlow, “U.S. Returns Painting Looted by Nazis in ‘37”, Courthouse News Service, April 22, 2009, illustrated
Catherine Onuchin, “American police returned the portrait of the XVII century rightful owners”, ART investment .RV, April 24, 2009
Daniel Grant, “Stern Estate Reclaims Long-Lost 17th-Century Dutch Landscape”, Artnews, April 28, 2009
“Holocaust Painting Returned”, AMNY, April 30, 2009, illustrated
Janice Arnold, “U.S. Government Recovers Nazi-Looted Stern Painting”, The Canadian Jewish News, April 30, 2009, illustrated
“NY man returns Nazi-looted art hanging in his room”, The San Diego Union – Tribune, May 6, 2009
Sewell Chan, “Painting Forcibly Sold by Nazis is Returned”, City Room, May 6, 2009
“Richard L. Feigen Returns Ludovico Carracci’s Depiction of St. Jerome he Unwittingly Bought”, Artdaily
Catherine Hickley, “Dealer Returns Painting Last in Nazi-Era Forced Sale”, Bloomberg, May 6, 2009
“ICE returns second painting stolen during Holocaust, Italian Old Master work belonged to Jewish dealer who was Forced to sell it by the Nazis”, ICE, New York, May 6, 2009
A.B., “Painting forcibly sold by Nazis is Returned”, Cervantes, May 6, 2009
“Quick Takes”, The Los Angeles Times, May 7, 2009
“Italian painting stolen by Nazis recovered by Concordia”, Maclean’s, May 7, 2009
Janice Arnold, “Seventh Stern Painting Restored to Estate”, The Canadian Jewish News, May 14, 2009
Fred Abrams, “Asset Search News Roundup: May 16, 2009”, Asset Search News, May 16, 2009, illustrated
Ann Lang, Nancy Wood, & Justin Hayward, “Nazi victim’s art holdings unveiled at Montreal Museum” CBC News, May 20, 2009, illustrated
Janice Arnold, “Nazi-Confiscated Stern Art Goes on Display”, The Canadian Jewish News, May 28, 2009
“Holocaust Claims”, New York State Banking Department 2009 Annual Report, p. 9, illustrated
Patty Gerstenblith, “Max Stern Recoveries”, International Art and Cultural Heritage, vol. 44, no. 1, Spring 2010, p. 497
Noah Lederman, “Undercover Avenger Restoring the Holocaust’s Stolen Art”, Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2010, illustrated
Sherry Hutt & David Tarler eds., “The Max Stern Collection”, Yearbook of Cultural Property Laws 2010, Left Coast Press, Inc., 2010
Derek Fincham, “Fine Art Crime Digest – An Empty Frame: Thinking About Art Crime”, Journal of Art Crime, South Texas College of Law, Houston, vol. 2, October 10, 2011, p. 74
Julie Gedeon, “In Pursuit of Art and Justice”, Concordia University Magazine, Spring 2012, p. 16, illustrated no. 7
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., “Hendrick ter Brugghen, Bagpipe Player, 1624”, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. April 24, 2014, pp. 3, 6, illustrated fig. 4
Debbie Swartz, “Art as Education”, Vassar, vol. 110, issue 2, Spring / Summer 2014
“Morgenthau Thanked for Recovery of Rare Stolen Schiele Painting Museum of Jewish Heritage”, Copyright Litigation Blog, October 31, 2014
Emily Chan, “Art Detective Scours Globe for Paintings Taken by Nazis”, CTV News September 3, 2015, illustrated
Sarah J. Angel, A Moral Persuasion: The Nazi-Looted Art Recoveries of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project 2002 – 2013, Ph. D. dissertation, University of Toronto, April 2017, pp. 136-137 illustrated, 149 – 158, 161 – 163, 253 – 255, 262, 265, 271, 273
Catherine Hickley, “Why did Düsseldorf Cancel an Art Show Honoring a Victim of the Nazis”, The New York Times, December 2, 2017, p. 5, illustrated
“Nazi, Jews, Fine Art and too Canadian”, Radio Canada International, February 16, 2018, illustrated
“Dr. Max Stern & The Max Stern Collection”, Department of Financial Services, New York State, October 10, 2020, illustrated
“Restitution Ceremonies at the Museum 2009: Portrait of a Musician Playing a Bagpipe”, Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2020
“Max Stern Art Restitution Project”, Wikipedia & Wiki Visually
“Max Stern Estate chronology – Key dates”, Max Stern Art Restitution Project, Concordia University, illustrated
Representative of all that yet remains to be found, the story of our purchase of this small panel and its subsequent recovery which generated so much press, is an important one to tell.
In 1934 Dr. Max Stern inherited the Galerie Julius Stern in Düsseldorf from his father. By 1935 Dr. Stern was prohibited by the Reich Chamber for the Visual Arts from buying and selling art, with the final blow delivered in 1937 when ordered to immediately liquidate his entire stock. In compliance with this order, 228 paintings were sold in an auction on November 13, 1937 at Lempertz in Cologne. On December 23, 1937 Dr. Stern fled to England and never received any proceeds from the auction. By 1939, along with 2,000 other German and Austrian civilian refugees, he was incarcerated as a dangerous alien on the Isle of Man for three months, until the opportunity to emigrate to Canada arose. Once there he wound up in internment camps until 1942.[2] Remarkably Dr. Stern was able to rebuild his life when given a job at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal, which eventually he would come to own, and rise to be one of Canada’s leading art dealers. Sadly, he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1987 while on a business trip to Paris.[3] Dr. Stern never spoke about the 1937 Lempertz sale. His heirs Concordia University, Montreal; McGill University, Montreal; and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem only discovered this travesty ten years after his death[4], and then undertook the mission to assure that the world would never forget such injustices.
In 2008 Lawrence Steigrad Fine Arts purchased the Portrait of a Musician Playing a Bagpipe from Philip Mould, Ltd. in London. Prior to its publication in our 2009 catalog and subsequent exhibition at the TEFAF fair in Maastricht, we checked its status with the Art Loss Registry; “the world’s largest resource for tracking looted or lost works”.[5] Similarly Philip Mould and Lempertz, where he had purchased it in 2007, had done likewise. In all three instances the painting was cleared for sale. Louisa Loringhoven of Art Loss Register explained the repeated mistake by stating “The Lempertz catalog from 2007 describes the painting as a portrait of a musician aged 57, while our database describes the painting as a portrait of a bagpipe player. Though the picture was searched by description and title, it was missed because of these differences”.[6] Shortly after our return from Maastricht in April 2009, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents enacted a sting operation at our gallery to seize the painting. Two days prior we had been informed by the director at Philip Mould, Ltd., that the work had been sold under duress and discussions were underway as how to return the panel to the Stern estate. We had already removed the painting from the gallery in preparation for its return when the sting occurred. Naturally, we were quite taken aback as this had not previously happened due to a forced auction before World War II. The painting was duly returned and we were privileged to be among the invited guests when the panel was exhibited and formally handed over by the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Holocaust Remembrance Day April 21, 2009 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York.[7] Similarly, the consignment of this painting by the estate of Max Stern for sale to our firm is an honor. As the Max Stern Art Restitution Project is a not-for-profit organization, their proceeds from the sale of this work will be used to further the search and reclamation of the hundreds of works still missing from the estate.
As I wrote this note, the one thing I could not understand was after all that had happened to Dr. Stern, his silence on his loss. I finally asked my 98-year-old mother, herself a holocaust survivor, why she thought he never mentioned the forced sale of his stock. Her reply was “because we wanted to forget, we wanted to be just like everyone else, but most of all we were scared it would happen again”.
This unusual picture depicts a musician in 1632. He stands with the tools of his trade, an elaborately decorated bagpipe and on the wall behind him a violin and bow. To the right is a simple meal on a cloth covered table. Although upon initial viewing the painting appears to be a straightforward portrait of a musician, the work also incorporates themes of vanitas and genre. His fanciful dress and gold-hoop earring add a note of exoticism to the portrayal.
Few visual sources documenting professional musicians survive from the period. Portraits of musicians are not common[8] and this work also provides a fascinating record of folk instruments that were traditionally played at country dances, weddings and other celebrations. The bagpipe consists of a shawn or single reed pipe blown through a bag with usually one or more drones that are cylindrical pipes which sound only one tone. Violinists at this stage did not use chin rests. The instrument would be held against the chest, the upper-arm, shoulder or collar-bone. The bow was more convex than is common today, as well as ending in a long and tapering point.[9] While staring directly at the viewer and posed as if ready to begin playing, the musician draws his audience into the composition breaking down the pictorial barrier. The seventeenth century viewer could readily imagine the type of music that was about to be played. [10]
A common vanitas theme is the association of music’s fleeting nature with that of time. The bagpipe and violin’s particular connection with peasant revelries further link them to the sin of gluttony, as drinking and feasting were regarded as vices best avoided. Although this might seem an overstatement of interpretation, the artist’s inclusion of a broken string on the violin leaves little doubt of the intent. The bagpipe is embellished with a gold and silver coin stamped with an eagle which hangs from a silver chain, possibly suggesting a Hapsburg connection. These coins also may be viewed as emblematic of the transient nature of earthly riches.
In this context, the instruments also embody the sin of lust. The bagpipe at times carried an erotic connotation as a symbol for male genitals.[11] The playing of a violin was also a common metaphor for lovemaking, the bow representing the male and the instrument the female. There is an etching by Adriaen Matham, (1599-1660) of a Violinist (Rijksprenten Kabinet, Amsterdam) that depicts an old violinist lasciviously staring at the viewer while playing his instrument. Bagpipes hang from his belt, and the print’s inscription leaves no room for doubt: “My strings are stiff, as well as all the rest / But if my Aeltie helps / then it works best”.[12] Another print done by Crispijn de Passe the Elder (1564-1637) circa 1600, Rustic Couple with a Bagpipe, has a man and woman seated facing each other with a bagpipe in-between, the woman fondles the top of the sack while the man leers. [13] Although the seriousness of the expression of our sitter belies a sexual connotation, the resplendent head of Pan with his goat-like face, pointed ears and horns crowning the reed pipe claim otherwise. Pan, the Greek god who charmed the nymphs with his pipes, personifies lust.
The musician’s Spartan meal represents temperance, stemming from a tradition that began in the early 1600s of contrasting the rich and poor man’s meal in pendant panels.[14] Contemporary moralists advocated a temperate lifestyle as the road to salvation in opposition to one spent in the pursuit of worldly pleasures. Thus, various vanitas themes converge within this seemingly simple portrayal of a fifty-seven-year-old musician and his instruments offering both temptation and redemption.
Peggy Stone
[1]In written communications from Ludwig Meyer of the Archiv Für Kunstgeschichte dated Munich January 13, 2009 and Gert Elzinga of the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden dated January 20, 2009 both suggest the panel to be by an artist working in the Northern Netherlands.
[2] “Claim Chronology: Portrait of a Musician Playing a Bagpipe,” at glorimar.perez-gonzales@banking.state.ny.us; and Sara J. Angel, op. cit., pp. 21-23, 25, 27, 48.
[3] Sara J. Angel, ibid, pp ii, 23-24.
[4 ]Ibid, pp. ii, 28, 50.
[5] Ibid, p. 28.
[6] Catherine Hickley, op. cit., April 21, 2009.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Louis Peter Grijp, “Confusions and Perspectives”, in Music and Painting in the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, The Hague, Waanders, Zwolle, 1994, pp. 119, 202.
[9] Louis Peter Grijp, “Survey of Musical Instruments”, in Music and Painting in the Golden Age, op. cit., pp. 270, 365.
[10] Louis Peter Grijp, “Confusions and Perspectives”, op. cit., p. 113.
[11] Edwin Buijsen & Paul Verbraeken, “Jasper van der Lamen”, in Music and Painting in the Golden Age, op. cit., p. 204.
[12] Edwin Buijsen, “Jan Steen”, in Music and Painting in the Golden Age, op. cit., pp. 290, 292.
[13] See Margret Klinge & Dietmar Lüdge, David Teniers der Jüngere 1610-1690, exhibition catalogue, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, 2005, p. 48.
[14] Ildikó Ember, “Still-Life Paintings: The Hidden Meanings” in Delights for the Senses, Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Paintings from Budapest, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, 1989, pp. 22-26, 38, fn. 33.