Richard Zinser in Getty Provenance Index graph data visualisation of Knoedler transactions: Millet, Cranach, Cézanne, Renoir, Bonnard, Romney
Showing posts with label Knoedler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knoedler. Show all posts
Jul 31, 2025
Richard Zinser and Knoedler
Jul 20, 2025
Looted art laundering networks in the USA: Cassirer v Thyssen
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| Rue St. Honoré, après midi, effet de pluie by Camille Pissarro is the object of a claim for restitution: Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation |
"By 1951, the Painting had made its way to the U.S. after changing hands several times in Germany. In July, the Frank Perls Gallery (“Perls”) in Beverly Hills, California, sold the Painting to an art collector, Sidney Brody, for $14,850.[11]Less than a year later, in February of 1952, Perls (for Brody) consigned the Painting with Knoedler Gallery (which you may remember for other reasons) for sale in New York.[12]Missouri-based art collector, Sydney Schoenberg, was next to purchase the Painting; he sold it through New York’s Stephen Hahn Gallery several years later on consignment in 1975 or 1976"
- Case Review: Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, Center for Art Lawhttps://archive.is/N01Tn#selection-839.0-855.186
On Sidney Brody's rapid return of the Pissarro to Perls, see Iker Seisdedos's article in El Pais: "The Thyssen’s disputed Pissarro: a masterpiece that symbolizes the ongoing struggle to return Nazi-looted art":
"The painting arrived in Los Angeles in the possession of a German merchant called Frank Perls, who was Jewish – “ironically,” notes Cassirer, who describes him as a “super-thief.” During the war, Perls had worked as a translator for the US Army. He sold the work to a noted art lover called Sidney Brody, who was also Jewish and returned it a few months later because, according to Cassirer, he found out that it was a looted piece. A year later, Perls sold the painting again to the heir to a department store fortune in Saint Louis, where it remained for 20 years. It was offered to Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza through a well-known New York dealer, Stephen Hahn."
https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=VGPS0A541611
On Stephen Hahn, see the 2005 lawsuit filed against him jointly by two different families who were seeking to reclaim Holocaust-linked art. Artnews reported on the lawsuit in "Judge Supports Suit to Reclaim Profits from Nazi Loot".
"NEW YORK—A California judge has ruled that two families may proceed with their lawsuit against art dealer Stephen Hahn to recover the profits Hahn is alleged to have earned on sales, some 30 years ago, of works by Pablo Picasso and Camille Pissarro that had been looted during World War II. This is believed to be the first case in the U.S. in which the heirs of Nazi victims have sought compensation from an intermediary.
Claude Cassirer and Thomas C. Bennigson had filed the joint complaint in Santa Barbara, Calif., against Hahn, former president of the Art Dealers Association of America, on July 19. They claimed that Hahn had sold the two paintings without the consent of the legal owners and therefore must hold the profits for them. All three men live in California."
The Artnews article mentions two separate cases in which Hahn played a role. One was Picasso's Femme en Blanc :
"The Picasso was looted by the Nazis in 1940 from Paris art dealer Justin K. Thannhauser, to whom it had been sent for safekeeping by Bennigson’s grandmother Carlota Landsberg, of Berlin. Dealer Hahn imported the painting from France in 1975 and sold it a year later to James and Marilyn Alsdorf of Chicago for $357,000, the complaint states. Bennigson located the Picasso, now worth some $10 million, in 2002, when Marilyn Alsdorf prepared to sell the painting, and the Art Loss Register identified it as stolen. Bennigson has filed a separate claim against Marilyn Alsdorf."
(see also: "The FBI seizes disputed Picasso" Los Angeles Times https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-oct-27-et-quick27.5-story.html) 27 Oct 2004 — The circa-1922 painting, “Femme en Blanc” (Woman in White) is believed to have been stolen by the Nazis during World War II from the grandmother of Oakland-based heir Thomas Bennigson. The painting was purchased in 1975 by Chicago art collectors James and Marilyn Alsdorf before its tie to the Nazis was discovered. In 2002, Bennigson sued to have the painting returned to him. Although the painting has been taken into U.S. custody, an FBI spokeswoman said Tuesday that the artwork will remain in Alsdorf’s residence until the courts can determine the rightful owner. )
The other was Pissarro's Rue St. Honoré, après midi, effet de pluie:
"Cassirer’s grandmother Lilly Cassirer-Neubauer, of Munich, was forced to sell the Pissarro to a Nazi agent in 1939 for a nominal amount before she fled from Germany. Hahn subsequently acquired the painting and, circa 1976, sold it to Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, who later transferred it over to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation in Madrid."
May 31, 2025
Knoedler's ledgers: mapping missing entry dates and seller names
data source: Getty Provenance Index GitHub Knoedler file 13 Dec 2017
(analysis performed on CSV file before GPI remodel)
Note: Transactions prior to 1925 or in the Stockbooks 1-7 have been removed from this file, reducing the number of transactions from 40,250 to 13,809. This enables us to focus on the years 1928 to 1970.
Three huge spikes in activity pop out: 1951, 1928 and 1942. But before we examine what happened in those years to create such a spike, we must deal with a problem of missing data.
Of the above transactions, 1,746 lack an entry date year. That's over 10%! More than even our highest peak!
What to do? Data scientists often "clean" datasets by eliminating rows with incomplete data. That is exactly what we will NOT do. Instead of eliminating these rows of incomplete data from our data set, we will focus on them.
Why are these 1,746 transactions missing the entry date year? Do they have anything else in common?
What other indicators might supply us with the missing information? Proxies, in short, for the entry date year. (Names associated with specific date ranges, for example).
The Stock Book Numbers 1928-1970
The Stock Book Numbers for transactions with no Entry Date Year
We see that most of the missing years are from Stock Book 11.
What else can we learn about the profile of the missing dates? We can compare the most frequent nationalities of all transactions 1928-1970
to the nationalities of the transactions missing entry date years:
The largest contingent are American. We don't understand this but will file it away, hoping that it might Make sense later.
What about the sellers? And here we are in for a bit of a surprise.
Of the 1,746 transactions that have no entry year, the vast majority - 1,481 - also have no seller.
What kind of ledgers are these that Knoedler was keeping, with neither year nor seller?
Which ledgers are most concerned by this double absence?
With 1,469 mysterious transactions, it's Stock Book 11.
Who are the joint owners listed in Book 11 ledger entrees which have no entry date or seller name?
(filter: Joint owner appear at least twice)
Joint Own Auth 1 | Count | Knoedler Numbers in Book 11 |
Pinakos, Inc. (Rudolf Heinemann) | 84 | A6420, A5321, A4774, A6680, A5326, A5434, A1825, A1834, A1845, A1849, A1943, A1944, A1945, A1946, A2523, A2730, A2770, A2774, A2795, A2964, A3026, A3029, A3044, A3049, A3274, A3292, A3300, A3312, A3527, A5250, A5286, A5467, A5469, A5515, A5624, A5708, A5730, A4542, A4824, A4839, A4840, A4843, A4844, A4849, A4851, A4854, A4898, A4920, A4937, A4940, A4955, A5117, A5213, A5944, A5948, A5960, A5963, A5964, A5965, A5982, A6010, A6122, A6777, A6679, A6593, A6548, A6530, A6501, A6500, A6430, A6415, A6318, A6310, A6299, A6295, A6294, A7059, A6998, A6970, A6932, A7109, A5602, A5603, A6826 |
Hirschl & Adler Galleries | 37 | A3815, A4107, A3884, A3886, A3873, A3875, A3876, A3880, A3882, A3883, A3885, A3888, A5284, A5319, A5560, A5561, A5737, A5738, A5788, A5806, A5807, A5928, A6102, A6738, A6727, A6726, A6722, A6721, A6704, A6651, A7047, A7046, A7021, A7005, A7004, A6972, A7125 |
Spark, Victor David | 25 | A6144, A3188, A5745, A4448, A4923A, A4923C, A4923D, A4923H, A4923I, A4923K, A4923L, A4923M, A4923O, A4923P, A4923Q, A4923R, A4923S, A4923T, A4923W, A5016, A6013, A6018, A6138, A6145, A6147 |
Berggruen (Heinz), Galerie & Cie | 23 | A5750, A6640, A7031, A7030, A7029, A6899, A7119, A7120, A6070, A6073, A6114, A6112, A6150, A7018, A7017, A7016, A7015, A6844, A6843, A6443, A6350, A6347, A6641 |
Schempp, (Theodore), & Co. | 13 | A6934, A5188, A6684, A7066, A7002, A7001, A7000, A6942, A6939, A6935, A7116, A7130, A7131 |
Kennedy Galleries, Inc. | 13 | A4936, A7127, A7128, A7129, A5581, A6272, A6273, A6274, A7124, A7135, A5074, A5075, A6669 |
Fine Arts Associates | 11 | A5304, A5209, A6764, A6739, A7039, A6869, A7114, A7115, A7133, A7134, A6922 |
The A.B. Closson Jr. Co. | 9 | A5079, A5080, A5082, A5083, A5085, A5086, A5087, A5088, A5089 |
Betty McLean Gallery | 9 | A5288, A5290, A5291, A5292, A5294, A5299, A4684, A4685, A5055 |
E. and A. Milch | 7 | A3655, A3855, A3857, A3858, A4635, A6824, A7136 |
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery | 7 | A7078, A7080, A7082, A7081, A7083, A7077, A7079 |
Pearlman, Henry | 6 | A7086, A7087, A7089, A7090, A7091, A7088 |
Kleemann Galleries | 6 | A4617, A6432, A6391, A6390, A6332, A6331 |
De Hauke & Co. | 5 | A6763, A7100, A7101, A7103, A7110 |
Frank Perls Gallery | 5 | A6506, A6230, A6762, A6743, A6435 |
Balay, Roland | 5 | A3834, A3835, A3836, A3837, A3838 |
Latendorf Bookshop | 5 | A6249, A6250, A6251, A6252, A6253 |
Agnew's | 5 | A5435, A6098, A6099, A6228, A7056 |
Old Print Shop, The | 4 | A5714, A5716, A5718, A4672E |
Weitzner, Julius H. | 4 | A6921, A5703, A6534, A6929 |
Charell, Ludwig | 3 | A6379, A6378, A6377 |
Babcock Galleries | 3 | A3413, A3661, A5072 |
Galerie les Tourettes (Otto Wertheimer) | 2 | A5281, A7117 |
John F. Fleming Rare Book Co. | 2 | A6388, A6387 |
Galerie des Arts Anciens et Modernes | 2 | A6135, A6313 |
SUTTON, HILDA | 2 | A3383, A3395 |
Louis Leon and Co. | 2 | A6801, A6525 |
Michelotti, M. | 2 | A5320, A4049 |
Ward Eggleston Galleries | 2 | A5991, A5992 |
Kernochan, Katherine Lorillard | 2 | A2144, A2145 |
Ackermann, (Arthur), and Son | 2 | A3600, A2556 |
Frederick A. Stern Inc. | 2 | A3068, A3206 |
Weil, (André), Galerie | 2 | A6701, A6795 |
STRÖLIN, ALFRED | 2 | A6478, A6477 |
Abdy, Robert Henry Edward, Sir, 5th Bart. | 2 | A7009, A6967 |
Colnaghi's | 2 | A1982, A3060 |
Where else do these Knoedler numbers appear? What do they tell us?
Can the recent publication of the new Getty Provenance Index on linked data principles help us to go further in the analysis of the information that is missing from the original Knoedler ledgers? How might we do this?
tbc...
May 14, 2025
Tips for advanced search and download on the new Getty Provenance Index: VIDEO
The new Getty Provenance Index can be confusing to use. Here are some tips for advanced search and download on the new GPI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbf0QjHWQ_8
Demo:- simple search on Pinakos,
- selection of provenance activity facet
- narrowing to a specific art market actor, (Swiss art dealer Fritz Nathan)
- download into CSV file of the five artworks that Fritz Nathan sold to Pinakos and Knoedler (who acquired jointly)
Tip: Downloading works if you don't select the optional "Export as system values".
(In the videos I keep the mistakes so that viewer can recognize them and not panic if they make the same.)
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