Provenance Research Project
The Master of Frankfurt | Virgin and Child with Saint James the Pilgrim, Saint Catherine and the Donor with Saint Peter c.1496 | Purchased 1980 with funds from Utah Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Queensland Art Gallery Collection
Illustration 1:
The Master of Frankfurt
Virgin and Child with Saint James the Pilgrim, Saint Catherine and the Donor with Saint Peter c.1496
Purchased 1980 with funds from Utah Foundation through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation
Collection: Queensland Art Gallery
Illustration 2:
The sticker affixed to the reverse of the painting identifies Oscar Bondy as a previous owner and the number of the painting in his collection.
Illustration 3:
The number inscribed on the reverse of the painting alerted the research team to the possibility that it had been confiscated by the Nazis.
Provenance Research Project
Restituted objects
The volume of art objects restituted to their owners or heirs after having been confiscated, sold under duress, or stolen during the course of the Nazi era makes it entirely plausible that these objects could have been acquired later by museums.
Research undertaken to date has revealed that the Queensland Art Gallery Collection contains a painting which had been confiscated by Nazi officials and eventually restituted to the rightful heir of the individual from whom it had been taken. The details of this object and its history appear on this list, as will any further objects identified in this category.
The provenance data cited includes information about the known movements of those objects from the time they were taken from their owners, until they were returned.
The Master of Frankfurt
On the back of the painting Virgin and Child with Saint James the Pilgrim, Saint Catherine and the Donor with Saint Peter c.1496 by the Master of Frankfurt (see illustration 1) is a small circular label that catalogues the work as number 509 in the collection of Oscar Bondy, Vienna (see illustration 2). Accompanying Bondy's label is the inscription 'OB 1304', the format often used by Germany's Nazi party to document confiscated art works (see illustration 3). Bondy was a Jewish connoisseur and collector who acquired the painting in 1928; his collection was confiscated by the Nazi party in 1939.
In tracing the original inventory with the Kommision für Provenienzforschung of the Austrian Government, it was confirmed that 'OB 1304' was the Nazi identification number for the painting by the Master of Frankfurt. Next to the entry for the Master's painting in the Nazi inventory is the stamp: 'Kunstmuseum Linz', referring to its proposed inclusion in the Führermuseum, an art museum planned by Adolf Hitler for the Austrian city of Linz.
Provenance
| 16 April 1980 | (lot 27) (Sotheby's, London) |
| 1964–80 | Norton Simon Foundation, Los Angeles and Pasadena |
| by 1956– | Duveen Bros., New York |
| 1949– | Shirley Falke Collection, Lennox, Massachusetts |
| 3 March 1949 | (Kende Gallery, New York) |
| 1928?–49 | Oscar Bondy Collection, Vienna |
| 1947 | Restituted to Elisabeth A Bondy, widow of Oscar Bondy, New York |
| 1946 | Retrieved by allied forces and released via the Central Art Collecting Point, Munich, to government officials of Upper Austria |
| 1939 | Collection of Oscar Bondy confiscated by Nazi officials; painting allocated to the Führermuseum, Linz |
| January 1928– | Hugo Perls, Berlin |
| by 1902 | Duke of Anhalt, Gothic House, Wörlitz, Castle of Dessau, Germany |
