FRANZ XAVER WINTERHALTER
(Menzenschwand 1805 – 1873 Frankfurt am Main) 

Girl from the Sabine Hills (Mädchen aus den Sabiner Bergen)

Signed, lower right: FW

 
Oil on canvas, 29 ¼ x 25 inches (74.5 x 63 cm)

View our video series about the painting,
detailing its origins, rediscovery, and restitution.

 
Provenance:

The Artist, 1834; from whom acquired for the Badischer Kunstverein lottery, 7 December 1834
(Possibly) Sold by lottery at the Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, by 1837
Frau C. S., et al.; their sale, Rudolf Bangel, Frankfurt am Main, 25–27 September 1907, lot 149, as Schlafende Italienerin im Grünen; where acquired by:
Albert Dessoff, Frankfurt
Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf, by 1937; their forced sale, “Die Bestände Der Galerie Stern Düsseldorf,” Lempertz, Cologne, 13 November 1937, lot 181, as Mädchen aus den Sabiner Bergen; where acquired by:
Karl Heinrich Christian Wilharm, Hofgeismar, Germany, 1937–1956; by descent to:
Countess Lilli von Platen-Hallermund, Hofgeismar, Germany, 1956–1991; by descent to:
Maria-Luise Franziska Eugenie Elisabeth Christa Bissonnette, née Freiin von Morsey and formerly Youmans, Woonsocket and Providence, Rhode Island;
Consigned by the above to Estates Unlimited, Cranston, Rhode Island, 6 January 2005, lot 1098 (withdrawn)
Restituted to the heirs of Max Stern in December 2008
Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation, Montreal, 2008–present

Exhibited:

Karlsruhe, Badischer Kunstverein Ausstellung (Fine Art Society Exhibition), 1834, as Schlafende Italienerin, lent by the artist.

Kassel, Städtische Kunstsammlungen, “Ein Jahrhundert romantische Malerei: von Martin v. Rohden (1778–1868) bis Louis Kolitz (1845–1914),” June 1952, no. 142, as Schlafende junge Italienerin, lent by Dr. Wilharm.

Montreal, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2009–2018.

Copies:

Lithograph by Hermann Eichens (1813–1866); exhibited Salon of 1846, Paris, no. 2385, as La Siesta. (Catalogue complet du Salon de 1846, annoté de A-H Delaunay, p. 179).

Porcelain plaques by Johann Martin Morgenroth (1800–1859), 17 x 14 cm. “Morgenroth px: nach F. Winterhalter.”

Literature:

“Nachrichten, Karlsruhe,” Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände, no. 144, Stuttgart (17 June 1834), p. 576, as Schlafende Albaneserin.

“Kunstausstellung in Karlsruhe,” Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände / Kunstblatt, no. 60, Stuttgart and Tübingen (28 July 1835), pp. 249–250, as Unter Einem Baume Schlafende Albaneserin.

Georg Kaspar Nagler, Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, vol. 21, Vienna, 1851, p. 547, as Eine Unter dem Baume Schlafende Albaneserin.

Abendblatt der Wiener Zeitung, no. 68 (21 March 1856), p. 270.

“Nekrologe; Franz Xaver Winterhalter,” Beiblatt zur Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst, vol. 8, no. 52 (10 October 1873), p. 836.

“Studien zur Charakteristik bedeutender Künstler der Gegenwart: Franz Winterhalter,” Die Dioskuren: Deutsche Kunstzeitung, Hauptorgan Der Deutschen Kunstvereine (12 October 1873), p. 294.

Hyacinth Holland, “Winterhalter,” Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Leipzig, 1875 and 1898, vol. 43, p. 498.

Georg Kaspar Nagler, Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, vol. 24, Vienna, 1924, pp. 455–456, as eine unter dem Baume schlafende Albaneserin.

Friedrich von Boetticher, Malerwerke des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts: Beitrag zur Kunstgeschichte, vol. 2, part 2, Leipzig, 1948, p. 1027, no. 36, as Siesta. Junge Italienerin, an einem Baum gelehnt, schlummernd, incorrectly described as reproduced in mezzotint by Henry Cousins.

“Auflösung der Galerie Stern,” Internationale Sammler-Zeitung, no. 19 (1 December 1937), p. 205.

Die Weltkunst, vol. 11, no. 46 (21 November 1937), p. 6.

Emil Baader, “Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873), der Europäische Fürstenmaler,” Badische Heimat, 1960, no. 40, p. 370, as Schalfende Albaneserin.

Armin Panter, Studien zu Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873), PhD dissertation, Universität Karlsruhe, 1996, pp. 60–61, 230, under cat. no. 42.

Jürgen Glocker, “Früher Ruhm und rasches Vergessen: zur ‘Vorgeschichte’ der Bonndorfer Ausstellung ‘Das Frühwerk: Franz Xaver Winterhalter zum 200. Gerburtstag,” Heimat am Hochrhein: Jahrbuch des Landkraises Waldshut, no. 31 (2006), p. 85.

Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873): Catalogue Raisonné, Melbourne, 2007, pp. 19–20, cat. no. 86.

Catherine MacKenzie, ed., Auktion 392: Reclaiming the Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf, exh. cat., Montreal, Faculty of Fine Art Gallery, Concordia University, 20 October 2006–31 August 2008, pp. 16, 47, cat. no. 181.

Emmanuel Burlion, Franz Xaver Winterhalter, 1805–1873, Brest, 2011, pp. 6, 38.

Sara Angel, “The Secret Life of Max Stern,” The Walrus, 15 October 2014.

Van L. Hayhow, “Is There an Effective US Legal Remedy for Original Owners of Art Looted During the Nazi Era in Europe?,” Master’s thesis, Harvard University Extension School, 2015, pp. 39–61.

Lena J. Reuber, in Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873): portraits de cour, entre faste et élégance, ed. Helga Kessler Aurisch et al., Paris, 2016, p. 230, under cat. no. 88, incorrectly as attributed to Hermann Winterhalter.

Lena J. Reuber, in High Society: The Portraits of Franz Xaver Winterhalter, ed. Helga Kessler Aurisch et al., Stuttgart and Houston, 2016, p. 228, under cat. no. 88, incorrectly as attributed to Hermann Winterhalter.

Emmanuel Burlion, Franz Xaver & Hermann Winterhalter, Brest, 2016, pp. 12, 70, 136, cat. no. 95.

Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873): Portraiture in the Age of Social Change, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Melbourne, Australia, 2016, pp. 377–378, cat. no. 23.

Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, The Winterhalter Catalogue: Online Catalogue Raisonné, https://franzxaverwinterhalter.wordpress.com/, cat. no. 86.

This stunning depiction of an Italian girl resting in the shade of a tree is one of the most evocative and important works by the German painter Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Although today best known for his grand portraits of royals and nobles across all of Europe, Winterhalter rose to fame primarily from the romantic genre paintings that he produced during and following his residence in Italy in the 1830s. The Girl from the Sabine Hills is perhaps the most accomplished of these Italian works and constitutes a milestone in his career as one of his earliest public successes. Remarkably, it survives in what appears to be its original frame.

The subject is the figure of a sleeping girl, here portrayed in dramatic, almost intimate close-up. She is shown three-quarter length leaning against a tree, with an earthenware jug partially covered by vines by her side, a distant landscape behind her. The work is executed in a rich palette of bold colors, with brilliantly rendered details of her costume, jewelry, and headdress contrasting with the placid beauty of the subject’s features in slumber. The effect is heightened by the juxtaposition of her delicately modeled skin tones with the bravura brushwork that the artist employs in the swirl of hair escaping from the headdress, the striking gold earring articulated by rich impasto, the eagle-shaped hairpin, and the coarsely woven embroidery of the blue apron. Winterhalter’s ability to capture the tactile qualities of the disparate textiles that comprise her costume—cotton, suede, satin, and velvet—presages his mastery of depicting the elaborate gowns that bedeck the subjects in his later formal portraits.

Franz Winterhalter came from humble roots. He was born into a family of farmers in the small village of Menzenschwand in the Black Forest. At a young age he was apprenticed to the workshop of Karl Ludwig Schüler in nearby Freiburg, where he trained as a commercial draughtsman and lithographer. Winterhalter’s prodigious talent was recognized early on by the Jewish industrialist David Seligmann, Baron von Eichtal, who had established a factory in the former monastery of St. Blasien, near the artist’s birthplace. He would become Franz’s first benefactor, sponsoring his move to Munich, where in 1825 he received a grant from the Grand Duke of Baden, Ludwig I, to study at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste.

The academic training Winterhalter would receive served him well, as he soon began work with the court portraitist Joseph Karl Stieler, an artist best known today for his dynamic 1820 Portrait of Beethoven (Beethoven-Haus, Bonn). It was here that Winterhalter made his first forays into portrait painting in oils, laying the groundwork for what would eventually become the principal occupation of his career. The young artist moved to Karlsruhe in 1828, where he began to work both as a professional portraitist and as the drawing instructor to Sophie, the future Grand Duchess of Baden. She was the wife of Leopold, who would succeed his half-brother Ludwig as Grand Duke in 1830 and prove to be an even more generous patron of the artist. Winterhalter served as court painter to the House of Baden in all but name (his official appointment to this position would come later) and the Grand Duke rewarded the artist by underwriting a two-year residence to study and to paint in Italy.

The “Italienische Reise”—to use the title of Goethe’s famed Italian travel journals—was considered an essential part of artistic training in the early nineteenth century. This was especially true for German artists, motivated by the influential writings of Goethe and the archaeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann. Winterhalter had yearned to make such a journey as early as 1827, but his financial situation prevented him from doing so until the receipt of Leopold’s largesse.[1] He set out from Karlsruhe late in 1832 and travelled through the major centers of Italy, filling sketchbooks with pencil drawings and watercolors that document his progress down the peninsula. He eventually settled in Rome in mid-1833. There he joined the thriving community of German painters, but increasingly associated himself with the circle of French artists around Horace Vernet, earning him the nickname “the Frenchman” among his fellow countrymen.[2]

Although Winterhalter did paint some portraits of German diplomats and fellow artists during this period, his primary activity focused on depictions of the local populace, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. The present work is now known as the Girl from the Sabine Hills—in German, Mädchen aus der Sabiner Bergen—after its title at the 1937 sale at Lempertz, although it has been variously titled across its history. It was first exhibited in Karlsruhe under the titles Schlafende Italienerin (“Sleeping Italian Girl”), or Unter einem Baume schlafende Albaneserin—the meaning of “Albaneserin” being rather equivocal. It may indicate that the sleeping girl is a native of the hill town of Albano, located in the Castelli Romani area just outside Rome. Winterhalter regularly sketched in the countryside around the city, both in the Sabine Hills (Colli della Sabina) north of Rome, and in the Alban Hills (Colli Albani) to the south. In fact, his Italian sketchbook, now in the possession of the artist’s descendants, preserves a watercolor depicting Albano from above.[3] Alternatively, an “Albaneserin” may refer to an Albanian girl, or a girl in Albanian dress. The subject’s attire does resemble traditional Albanian wear, often characterized by a billowy white blouse covered by a bodice (much like the Austrian dirndl), although similar folk costumes were worn throughout central and southern Italy.

With his on-site drawings and watercolors Winterhalter was both refining his talents and creating a personal archive that he could later reference in his studio. His records of the vistas and people he encountered would serve as source material for the genre paintings depicting romantic idylls of Italian life. While there are no known preparatory works for the Girl from the Sabine Hills, other drawings preserved in Winterhalter’s Italian sketchbook, such as the one here illustrated, demonstrate the artist’s interest in local costumes and document the care he took in recording their minute details (Fig. 1). It is likely that Winterhalter would have drawn upon his own sketches of this type, and likely ones recording the specific dress worn by the subject, when composing the Girl from the Sabine Hills.

Winterhalter’s technical ability and style underwent a significant transformation during his time in Italy. Under the southern sun he developed a more vivid palette and a greater sensitivity to lighting effects. He also gained a more masterful handling of poses and further refined the expressive brushwork that already characterized his earlier work. The Girl from the Sabine Hills was one of the first fruits of this metamorphosis. Winterhalter skillfully renders changes in texture and color among the various components of the girl’s costume, from the billowing folds of the white sleeves, to the dark green and gold piping of her bodice and the orange ribbon binding it together, to the reds and blacks of the woven band across her blue apron, and the pale green skirt beneath. The placement of the light source at a point high at the upper right and slightly behind the figure helps to achieve a dramatic play of light and shadow across the figure. Cast almost completely in shadow, the girl is accented by bursts of light that brightly reflect off her hair, the gold stripes in her headdress, the cuff and the top of her right forearm, as well as the entire underside of her left sleeve. The two strands of her necklace are masterpieces of illusionistic rendering, as each pearl is precisely defined by subtle variations in size, reflection, and luminosity—the choker resting about and casting a shadow across the nape of her neck. The unforced combination of precise and loose brushwork is a quality that bespeaks both the artist’s confidence and his technical prowess at this moment in his career.

The pose of the figure, with her arms folded behind her head, echoes that of the Sleeping Ariadne (Fig. 2), one of the great classical exemplars for all artists visiting Rome, then and now in the Vatican. But in addition to their compositional affinities, both works share a common visual dynamic as each woman is depicted innocent in her slumber and unaware of any observer, while patently being closely examined by both artist and, later, viewer, intimately and somewhat voyeuristically.

Winterhalter painted his first genre scenes while still in Italy, as attested by the signatures on several of his canvases from this period—all variations of “Fr Winterhalter fec. / Roma 1833.” However, although he completed numerous drawings and sketches while in Italy, fully realized oil paintings executed in his Roman studio are exceptionally rare. Only five other paintings from his Italian period are known, three of which are in public collections: Roman Genre Scene (1833) in the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe (Fig. 3); Girl with a Tambourine (1834) in The Vasnetzov Regional Museum of Fine Arts in Kirov; and Italian Girl Resting on a Tambourine (1834) in the Altonaer Museum in Hamburg.[4]

Although the signature on the Girl from the Sabine Hills does not include an indication of its place of production, Winterhalter must have painted it in Rome, as he lent the painting to the exhibition of the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe in 1834, immediately following his return from Italy. Indeed, his sole surviving letter penned from Rome, written to his parents on 12 March 1833, states: “In one month I will send three pictures from here to Karlsruhe and will try to sell them. It is already very warm here – it is quite green and everything is in bloom. This truly is a beautiful country. I will be glad all my life that I came here.”[5] The latter part of this quotation has elicited comments from almost every scholar writing on the painter as it perfectly captures the huge impact that Italy had on Winterhalter’s artistic development. However, less attention has been paid to the first part of the letter. It is clear from this statement that Winterhalter was planning and finishing paintings for the domestic market in Germany while still in Rome. Furthermore, it is possible, and perhaps likely, that the present painting is one of the three works shipped from Rome back to Karlsruhe for exhibition.      

Winterhalter left Rome for Karlsruhe early in 1834. The Girl from the Sabine Hills was on view in the Badischer Kunstverein exhibition in June and by August the artist had been officially appointed Court Painter to Grand Duke Leopold of Baden. The Kunstverein was a fine art institution that, like Winterhalter, had recently come under the patronage of the Grand Duke. It had acquired a permanent space through the support of Duke Leopold in 1830, and from 1832 on mounted annual public art exhibitions. According to the statutes from that year, the aim of the organization was to display and sell works of art, both directly to collectors and through a lottery among its members. The Girl from the Sabine Hills met with critical esteem during this 1834 exhibition: the reviewer for the art periodical Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände reported that Winterhalter’s painting “won the prize [for best painting] in the eyes of the public.” A year later it was still referred to as having been a “popular sensation.”[6]

Despite the positive response to the Girl from the Sabine Hills and the artist’s position at court, Winterhalter soon left Karlsruhe for Paris, where he would reside for the next thirty-six years. There he continued to paint Italianate genre scenes and his first success in the city came with one—a large-scale painting titled Il Dolce Far Niente (Private Collection), exhibited at the Salon of 1836. Another work from this period, Winterhalter’s Jeune Fille de l’Ariccia of 1838 (Private Collection), evokes the same sensual atmosphere and compositional format as the present painting.[7] However, Winterhalter’s portrait commissions quickly began to overshadow his narrative works, and he was engaged almost exclusively as a portraitist for the remainder of his career.

Although Winterhalter’s period as a painter of Italian genre scenes was relatively short-lived, it had two lasting effects. The first was the influence of Franz’s Italian paintings on his younger brother Hermann, also a painter. Hermann followed Franz to Paris in 1840, first working as an assistant in his brother’s studio before embarking on his own career. Indeed, it has only recently been recognized that the Young Italian Girl by the Well in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg, long thought to be the work of Franz, is in fact a signed work by Hermann (Fig. 4).[8] Another work of this type by Hermann, the Young Girl from the Sabine Hills, has also recently been identified.[9] Both are thought to have been painted by Hermann in the late 1830s or 1840s and clearly rely on Franz’s works, both reference drawings made in Italy and paintings he would have known, such as the present work. Hermann never travelled to Italy, but he achieved some modest success imitating his brother’s Italian genre paintings, if never with the same verve or even compositional brilliance.

The second lasting effect of Winterhalter’s Italian period was on the style and technique of his portraits. As Eugene Barilo von Reisberg has aptly observed, as a result of his Italian sojourn and activity as a narrative painter, Winterhalter’s portraits gained “a greater sense of naturalness and corporeality…[t]hey became less mannered and posed, his color palette brighter and more luscious, the atmospheric effects clearer and more realistic, and the painterly style more fluid and vigorous.”[10] It was precisely these qualities of that made Winterhalter the most fashionable and sought-after portraitist in the courts of Europe, earning him the sobriquet “Fürstenmaler Europas,” Europe’s Painter of Princes.

Winterhalter’s Girl from the Sabine Hills reflects the artistic crosscurrents of the first half of the nineteenth century in Europe. The focus on materiality—of the precise and convincing rendering of dress, objects, and textures—to create a kind of heightened reality recalls the sensibilities of Biedermeier taste. Yet the painting may be seen as emerging from a Neo-Classical paradigm, not only by the compositional echo of an antique prototype, but in its nostalgic evocation of an Arcadian existence. Evident as well are qualities of the Romantic movement, given both the obvious contemporaneity of the subject and the blissful emotional state in which she is portrayed. The girl herself, putatively a simple contadina taking a nap in the middle of a hot day, is a kind of Romantic invention as her sumptuous dress, precious jewelry, perfectly composed hair, not to mention her exquisite beauty, belie her humble origins.

Copies of the Girl from the Sabine Hills

Despite the paucity of information regarding the location and owner of the Girl from the Sabine Hills in the nineteenth century, it is clear that the work enjoyed some celebrity. The painting seems to have been known by the earliest writers on the artist,

including Georg Kaspar Nagler, compiler of the Neues allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon (1851), and the anonymous authors of the essays on Winterhalter in the Abendblatt der Wiener Zeitung

(1856) and Die Dioskuren (1873). The miniature painter Johann Martin Morgenroth, painted faithful copies after the Girl from the Sabine Hills on porcelain that were sold with imitations of the original frame—two versions of which have recently appeared on the art market (Fig. 5). Each is undated but signed: “Morgenroth

px: nach F. Winterhalter.”[11] It is evident that Morgenroth viewed Winterhalter’s painting firsthand (and maybe painted his first porcelain replica working directly in front of it), as the colors of his work faithfully reproduce those in the original painting. 

The Girl from the Sabine Hills was also copied in a handsome lithograph by Hermann Eichens (Fig. 6). Although the subscription of the print lists publishers in Paris, London, and Leipzig, only one example of the print, titled “La Siesta,” has been located. That, conserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, was acquired by the library in 1845, when it was also listed in the Bibliographie de la France.[12] Eichens exhibited this lithograph at the Paris Salon of 1846.[13] Eichens was born in Berlin, but, like Winterhalter was living and working in Paris in 1845.

PROVENANCE NOTES

The early history of the Girl from the Sabine Hills from the time of its first exhibition in Karlsruhe to the beginning of the twentieth century remains imperfectly known. Preliminary research in the archives of the Badischer Kunstverein (now held in the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe) indicates that following its exhibition in the summer of 1834 the Girl from the Sabine Hills was returned to Winterhalter unsold on 16 August of that year.[14] However, on 7 December the painting was included among a group of works acquired by the Kunstverein for its lottery.[15] When the lottery took place is not recorded. A painting by Winterhalter, listed simply as an Italian girl (Italienerin) was listed as sold in the Kunstverein lottery of 1837; whether that is to be identified with the Girl of the Sabine Hills or another work by the artist is unclear.[16] The painting next appears at auction at Rudolf Bangel in Frankfurt am Main in 1907. The consignor’s identity is not known, but its purchaser, noted in a priced copy of a catalogue as “Dessoff,” was Albert Dessoff, the son of the composer and conductor of the Frankfurt Opera House Otto Dessoff and the brother of the choir director Margarete Dessoff. Albert was an art historian (he co-authored the volume Kunst und Künstler in Frankfurt am Main im neunzehnten Jahrhundert with Heinrich Weizsäcker, published in 1907), and appears to have been active as either a collector or a modest dealer, as he was a frequent bidder and purchaser at Bangel auctions.[17]

The Girl from the Sabine Hills next resurfaces in the possession of the Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf. The Galerie Stern was established in 1913 by the German-Jewish art dealer Julius Stern and rose to prominence as one of the leading galleries in the city, specializing in paintings by established artists of the Düsseldorf school, nineteenth century German works, and Old Masters. Julius’s son Max Stern joined the gallery in 1928 after completing his PhD in art history. Over the course of the following decade, the Galerie Stern suffered great difficulties brought on first by the global economic downturn and later by the rise of Nazism in Germany. As a result of the Great Depression, the Galerie Stern, like many other art galleries, began to hold auctions, operating as the Kunstauktionshaus Stern between 1931 and 1933. However, this activity came to a halt in 1933 after Adolf Hitler rose to power as chancellor of Germany. The gallery was subjected to a new regulation that prevented Jews from conducting public auctions. From this point, the Galerie Stern focused on mounting large exhibitions at the gallery, which in reality were nothing more than auctions in disguise. During this period, Max Stern took over management of the gallery and subsequently inherited it after the death of his father in October 1934. Not long thereafter, the Galerie’s activity was again halted by the Nazi authorities. Max Stern was notified in August 1935 by the President of the RKdbK (the Reichskammer der Bildenden Künste, or Reich Chamber for the Fine Arts) that he could no longer continue his profession as an art dealer due to his “race.” Max appealed this decision and fought several subsequent orders to sell or dissolve the Galerie Stern. However, on 13 September 1937 Max received a final letter stating that no further appeals would be considered. He was given until 15 December of that year to liquidate the gallery’s holdings and to cease operation, which resulted in the stock of the gallery being offered at a forced auction at Lempertz in Cologne on 13 November 1937.[18]

The Girl from the Sabine Hills was included as lot 181 in the sale. How and when the painting had been acquired by Max Stern has not been determined; the work does not appear in any extant auction or exhibition catalogues produced by the gallery.[19] However, the importance of this painting was clearly recognized both by Stern and the organizers of the auction at Lempertz in the period leading up to the sale. Franz Winterhalter was highly regarded by the German elite and his works were greatly coveted. This is reflected in the fact that the painting was highly publicized, playing a central role in the promotional materials for the sale of the Galerie Stern. In addition to being illustrated as Plate 1 in the auction catalogue and appearing as the final lot of the “Neuere Meister” section of the sale, the work featured prominently in two advertisements for the auction (Figs. 7–8). Furthermore, the painting made the highest price of all of the “Neuere Meister” paintings in the sale at 3600 Reichsmark, surpassed in price only by two Old Master paintings— the Philips Wouwerman and the Ludovico Carracci (for which see the following catalogue entry).[20]

The Girl from the Sabine Hills was purchased at the Lempertz sale by Karl Heinrich Christian Wilharm, an early Nazi sympathizer and party member who served as a medical officer in the Sturmabteilung, a Nazi paramilitary force known as the SA. Wilharm was an avid collector who clearly profited from the spoils of Nazi persecution of Jewish art dealers and collectors, which flooded the art market with first-rate works newly available at rock-bottom prices. An undated photograph of Wilharm’s home in Hofgeismar shows a room filled with paintings and other objects d’art, including Winterhalter’s Girl from the Sabine Hills hanging high in a corner, and with Wilharm and his wife standing below (Fig. 9). In 1952 the painting was one of seven works lent by Wilharm to an exhibition in Kassel devoted to Romanticism.[21] The painting’s problematic history then went unnoticed.

 Max Stern was able to leave Germany in 1937, first traveling to London, where he was interned in 1940 on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien; then to Canada, where internment greeted him as well, although he was released in 1941. He moved to Montreal and was able to find work at the newly-established Dominion Gallery. There, having acquired a passionate interest in contemporary Canadian artists to complement his knowledge of European painting, he flourished. Over the years he became a partner in the gallery and eventually came to own it (Fig. 10). His distinguished career as an art dealer in Canada could only partially compensate for the dire situation that forced him to leave his native country. Stern never stopped seeking the return of paintings that he had been forced to abandon or sell at auction in Germany.

After Wilharm’s death, the Girl from the Sabine Hills descended to his wife, then to his stepdaughter, Maria-Luise Bissonnette. At the age of 84, Bissonnette, then a resident of Providence, Rhode Island, consigned the painting to an auction in nearby Cranston, Rhode Island, scheduled for January 2005. Research undertaken prior to the sale by interested dealers revealed that the painting had been part of the 1937 forced sale of the Galerie Stern. The Art Loss Register was then alerted and an injunction filed to halt the sale. Bissonnette, who disputed the claim that the painting was stolen property, illegally exported the painting to Germany. The painting became the subject of a prolonged legal battle between Bissonnette and the Max Stern Estate.[22] In a widely-publicized decision, the painting was ultimately awarded to the beneficiaries of the Estate of Max Stern (Concordia University and McGill University in Montreal, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem). Following its return, the Girl from the Sabine Hills has been exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and has featured in all of the recent literature on Winterhalter.

A PERSONAL NOTE FROM ROBERT B. SIMON

In December 2004 I received a phone call from my friends and colleagues Joan Nissman and Mort Abromson, husband-and-wife art historians and art dealers whom I have known since graduate school at Columbia University. They had noted an advertisement announcing the forthcoming auction sale in Rhode Island of an attractive painting by Franz Winterhalter—what would prove to be the Girl from the Sabine Hills (Fig. 11).

We agreed to pursue the painting together. Joan and Mort drove from their home near Boston to the auction venue to examine the painting. They observed its high quality, as well as its excellent condition, despite layers of discolored varnish. They took detail photographs of both the front and back of the painting, which they emailed to me (Fig. 12). One of those recorded a label on the verso (now lost), hand-written in German with notations of the artist, title, size, and provenance of the painting (Fig. 13). With this information in hand I undertook some hurried research at the Frick Art Reference Library. It did not take long to identify the painting as an authentic work by Winterhalter, and one that had been sold in an auction sale of the Galerie Stern in Düsseldorf in 1937. The Library in fact owned a copy of the catalogue. But further research also indicated that the auction was a forced sale of a Jewish-owned gallery by the Nazi regime, the illegitimacy of which had been established. Faced with this information and little time before the auction in Rhode Island, I contacted the Art Loss Register and reported my findings. They were able to confirm that the Winterhalter was a “wanted painting,” one registered with the ALR by the heirs of Max Stern, the owner of the Galerie Stern in 1937. The ALR alerted the auction house to the Stern Estate’s claim and the painting was withdrawn from the auction.

Then followed nearly four years of litigation, in Rhode Island, New York, and Germany principally between the Stern Estate and the consignor to the auction house—following which the Winterhalter painting was awarded to the Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern Foundation, the entity established by Max Stern as his beneficiary following his death in 1987.

I had no further contact with the Foundation, nor with the painting, until 2018, when I learned that the sale of the Winterhalter painting was being contemplated in order to fund the programs of the Max Stern Art Restitution Project, established in Montreal in 2002.[23] I approached the Foundation with a proposal to undertake extensive research on the painting and then to offer it to museums and private collectors—which was accepted. Robert Simon Fine Art is now honored to be presenting the Girl from the Sabine Hills for sale. The painting is manifestly a significant and spectacular work of art. But more than that, it is a mute witness to the trauma of our history, and its restitution, rehabilitation, and future enjoyment by others can serve in some way as vindication of the losses suffered by its former owner and an object lesson on the profound dangers that humanity has faced and continues to face.

Proceeds from the sale of Winterhalter’s Girl from the Sabine Hills will directly fund the Project’s mission to further the recovery of works expropriated from Max Stern and to support related research and educational programs.

[1] See Winterhalter’s letter to his parents (dated 3 August 1827): Hubert Mayer, Die Künstlerfamilie Winterhalter: Ein Briefwechsel, Karlsruhe, 1998, pp. 93–94.

[2] Ingeborg Eismann, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805–1873): Der Fürstenmaler Europas, Petersberg, 2007, p. 18.

[3] Elisabeth Kaiser and Dietmar Rimmele, Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Ansichten aus Italien, Aus Zwei Skizzenbüchern, 1832–1834, St. Blasien, 2012, unpaginated, as “Blick auf Albano.”

[4] The two paintings from this period in private collections are The Approaching Storm (1834) and By a Garden Pool (1834).

[5] Hubert Mayer, Die Künstlerfamilie Winterhalter: Ein Briefwechsel, Karlsruhe, 1998, pp. 108–109. “Ich werde bis in einem Monat drey Bilder von hier weg nach Carlsruh schiken, und suchen sie zu verkaufen - es ist hier jezt schon recht grün und blüht alles und sehr warm. Es ist doch ein schönes Land! Ich werde in meinem ganzen Leben mich freuen, daß ich hier gewesen bin, und wer weiß ob es das lezte mal ist, daß ich hier bin; ich mag es nicht glauben.”

[6] See: “Nachrichten, Karlsruhe,” Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände, no. 144, Stuttgart (17 June 1834), p. 576,

“schlafende Albaneserin in den Augen des Publikums den Preis davonträgt”; and “Kunstausstellung in Karlsruhe,” Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände / Kunstblatt, no. 60, Stuttgart and Tübingen (28 July 1835), pp. 249–250, “Seine unter einem Baume schlafende Albaneserin, die voriges Jahr im Kunstverein ausgestellt war, hat...allgemeine Sensasion im Publikum erregt.”

[7] Oil on canvas, 57.9 x 44.9 inches (147 x 114 cm). Sold Sotheby’s New York, 23 October 1997, lot 109, $1,762,500.

[8] Emmanuel Burlion, Franz Xaver & Hermann Winterhalter, Brest, 2016, p. 70; and Lena J. Reuber, in High Society: The Portraits of Franz Xaver Winterhalter, ed. Helga Kessler Aurisch et al., Stuttgart and Houston, 2016, pp. 228–229.

[9] Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, “New Catalogue Entry – Hermann Winterhalter,” 20 February 2015, Hermann Winterhalter catalogue raisonné, no. 101K. https://franzxaverwinterhalter.wordpress.com/2015/
02/20/new-catalogue-entry-hermann-winterhalter/.

[10] Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, in High Society: The Portraits of Franz Xaver Winterhalter, ed. Helga Kessler Aurisch et al., Stuttgart and Houston, 2016, p. 36.

[11] Nagel Auktionen, Stuttgart, 28 January 2016, lot 646, 17 x 14.5 cm, illustrated here; and Kunstauktionshaus Schloss Ahlden, Ahlden, 23 April 2016, lot 531, 17 x 14 cm.

[12] BNF, Paris, inv. no. 1845–2181; Bibliographie de la France: ou Journal général de l’imprimerie et de la librairie, Paris, 1845, p. 352, under no. 774.

[13] A. H. Delaunay, Catalogue Complet de Salon de 1846, Paris, 1846, p. 179, no. 2385.

[14] GLA 69 92. Kunstverein Tagebuch Austellungen, 1834, no. 120. We are grateful to by Dr. Andrea Gáldy for undertaking archival research in Karlsruhe, as well as further study into the provenance of the present work.

[15] GLA 69 15. “Es kam somit in die Verlosung…die schon frueher angebotenen Oelbilder, eine schlafende Italienerin von Winterhalter.” [Became part of the lottery…the oil paintings offered before, a sleeping Italian woman by Winterhalter.]

[16] GLA 69 16. “Liste der von dem Kunstverein fuer das Grossherzogthum Baden aus den fonds von 1835 & 1836angeschafften Kunstgegenstaenden . . . bei der am 25 November 1837 veranstalteten Lotterie zur Ausspielung kommen. . . Italienerin von Winterhalter.” [Works of art bought by the Kunstverein to be sold at the lottery of 25 Nov 1837 . . . Italian girl by Winterhalter.]

[17] Written communication, Christoph Andreas (31 March 2019), owner of a full run of annotated Rudolf Bangel auction catalogues.

[18] For a full account of the forced closure of the Galerie Stern by the Nazi authorities, see: Catherine MacKenzie, ed., Auktion 392: Reclaiming the Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf, exh. cat., Montreal, Faculty of Fine Art Gallery, Concordia University, 20 October 2006–31 August 2008, pp. 13–14; and https://www.
concordia.ca/arts/max-stern/context.html.

[19] Additionally, no documentation of the previous owner of the painting or the date of its acquisition have survived in the fragmentary records of the Galerie Stern, now conserved at the National Gallery of Art in Canada, for which see: https://www.gallery.ca/english/library/biblio/ngc030.html#a1.

[20] See: “Auflösung der Galerie Stern,” Internationale Sammler-Zeitung, no. 19 (December 1937), pp. 204–205.

[21] A surviving letter dated 9 May 1952 from Dr. Walter Kramm documents his request for seven works from Wilharm’s collection for the exhibition at the Städtische Kunstsammlungen in Kassel.

[22] For a comprehensive and detailed description of the legal proceedings, see: Van L. Hayhow, “Is There an Effective US Legal Remedy for Original Owners of Art Looted During the Nazi Era in Europe?,” Master’s thesis, Harvard University Extension School, 2015, pp. 39–61; available online: https://dash.harvard.edu/
handle/1/26519851.

[23] For the Max Stern Restitution Project, see: https://www.concordia.ca/arts/max-stern.html.