Seized by the Nazis in occupied France, a painting by Gustave Courbet currently in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, UK, will now be returned to the descendants of the original Jewish owner. The Children’s Round (1862), which has the title translated Under the trees in Port-Bertaud: the children are dancingwill be returned to Mondex Corporation (which helps clients recover art looted during World War II) on behalf of Robert Bing’s heirs.
According to a report published by the UK Spoliation Panel which examines claims for cultural property lost during the Nazi era: “The Children’s Round was seized in the apartment of Robert Léo Michel Lévy Bing [in] Paris on May 5, 1941 by two members of the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, ERR [which trafficked plundered art] as part of the Nazi dispossession of Jews in occupied France”.
The provenance of the painting is intriguing; its first owner was Etienne Baudry, a local patron of Courbet in Saintes, western France. Bing’s maternal grandmother, Clara Simonette Ballin (1845-1930), who married wealthy banker Alfred Grunebaum, is said to have later acquired the work.
“In support of the thesis that his widow was at the time an art collector, the plaintiff [of the restitution] draws attention to a catalog raisonné by Alfred Robaut of the work of [the artist Camille] Corot published in three volumes in Paris in 1905 which refers… to a painting in the collection of ‘Mme Veuve Alfred Grunebaum’,” the panel report states.
The painting was then seized in 1941 by the ERR which “recorded in a document located by the claimant in the federal archives held in Koblenz in Germany […] looting of property […] describing the painting as ‘Courbet signed Waldlandschaft [which means forest painting]”.
Crucially, our research last year explored the possibility that the work was later acquired as looted art by Hitler’s deputy, Hermann Göring who considered a photo exchange with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, a collector with a fondness for 19th-century French paintings.
The panel report adds: “The painting has a somewhat colorful history after it was captured. It took place at the Jeu de Paume [in Paris] for the benefit of the great Nazi collector, Hermann Göring. At one point he offered to trade it in a transaction involving Ribbentrop, but Ribbentrop or his wife did not like the work and that transaction did not take place.
On May 1, 1951, London dealer Arthur Tooth & Sons acquired the painting from Swiss art dealer Kurt Meissner. “On November 19, 1951, Arthur Tooth & Sons sold the painting to the then Dean of York, the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White (1884-1963). He in turn donated it the same year to the Fitzwilliam Museum in memory of the donor’s father,” the report added.
The museum claims that the research carried out into the provenance of the painting at the time the donation was received was consistent with the methods and standard of the time. “The museum has some 500,000 objects in its collection, including around 2,000 paintings. At the time of the donation, there would have been little to arouse suspicion. Not only was the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White an Anglican priest, but he was a generous donor of some 50 paintings to public collections in the UK and received both the [military decoration] DSO (exceptionally for a member of the clergy) and a CBE,” the panel report states.
The Fitzwilliam Museum says it will follow the recommendations set out by the panel. “This recommendation does not imply any criticism of the museum or of the original donor, the Very Reverend Eric Milner-White, who acted honorably and in accordance with the standards prevailing at the time of acquisition and since. The museum has taken care of the work so that it can now be returned to the heirs of the original owners.
