Provenienz
1Cantin (?) Acquired from the artist in November 1879, Wildenstein no. 536.
2Mme Cantin before 1895 Catalogue des tableaux anciens et modernes […] composant la collection de Madame Cantin, Vente à Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Paris (19 April 1895), no. 50.
3Durand-Ruel Paris • 1895 Acquired at the above sale, Wildenstein no. 536.
4Bernheim-Jeune Paris • 1898 Wildenstein no. 536.
5Paul Cassirer Berlin Wildenstein no. 536.
6Julius Stern Berlin • until [d.] 1914 Wildenstein no. 536.
7The estate of Julius Stern Berlin • 1914–1916 Sammlung Julius Stern †, Berlin, (sale cat.) Galerie Paul Cassirer, Berlin (22 May 1916), no. 70.
8G. Hauswaldt Magdeburg • 1916 until ca. 1928 Acquired at the above sale (the price fetched was M. 36.500, Kunst und Künstler (14) 1915/16, p. 513); AStEGB, Letter from Hermann Albrecht, Hamburg [lawyer acting on behalf of the estate of Helene Hauswaldt], to Kunsthaus Zurich, 25 July 1953, forwarded to Emil Bührle on 27 July 1953, asking for information regarding the sale of the painting «in 1928/30»; AStEGB, Letter from Dr. Walter Drack [curator of the Bührle collection] to Hermann Albrecht, Hamburg, 29 July 1953, summarizing information that Dr. Fritz Nathan has provided in regard to the painting’s provenance; AStEGB, Inventory Card Monet, Champ de Coquelicots, locates G. Hauswaldt in Magdeburg.
9Galerie Caspari Munich • ca. 1928/29 Inventory Card and Letter as above, n. (8).
10Dr. Max Emden Porto Ronco • Isola di Brissago • 1929 until [d.] 1940 Acquired from the above, according to Dr. Fritz Nathan’s memory for 55.000 to 60.000 Goldmark, Letter of 29 July 1953 as above, n. (8); Inventory Card, as above, n. (8), gives the date of the acquisiton as 1929. No documents regarding the acquisition by Max Emden from Galerie Caspari seem to have been preserved. However, recent research by the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection has found that Max Emden’s fortune was seriously hit by the Great Depression, beginning in October 1929, and it seems correct to hold on to the date 1929, the year after completion of the villa built on the Brissago Islands, given on the Inventory Card as above, n. (8).
11Hans Erich Emden Porto Ronco • Isola di Brissago • 1940–1941 Son of the above, File listing Hans Erich Emden’s inherited assets and detailing the ways by which he made use of them from 1940 to 1944, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington D.C. (NARA), Record Group 131, Entry 247, Foreign Funds Control Subject Files, Box 112: Office of Alien Property, Foreign Funds Control Investigative Reports; U.S. Embassy Santiago, Chile, Despatch No. 10.947, to: U.S. Department of State, October 23, 1944. Hans Erich Emden, who stayed in Switzerland at the time of his father’s death, started offering artworks from the residence in Brissago in fall 1940, with the advice of the art dealer Dr. Walter Feilchenfeldt, St. Gall/Ascona, who had known his father, Paul Cassirer/Walter Feilchenfeldt-Archiv, Zurich, AStEGB, Diary 1940 of Dr. Walter Feilchenfeldt, documenting two meetings between Dr. Walter Feilchenfeldt and Hans Erich Emden, on 5 October 1940 in Zurich, and on 13 October 1940 in Porto Ronco. The second meeting was set up to show the paintings in Emden’s house to Dr. Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur, who was accompanied on this occasion by Dr. Fritz Nathan, Archive Oskar Reinhart Collection «Am Römerholz», Winterthur, Travel Notebook XVII, Entry of 13 October 1940. See also Paul Cassirer-Archiv, Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zurich, Notebook of Dr. Walter Feilchenfeldt 1940–1942, listing the paintings on the Isola di Brissago with their asking prices, and adding some indications regarding new owners, or new locations. The Monet, Champ de coquelicots, is listed with an asking price of CHF 30.000, and «Bührle» is added as the painting’s new owner.
12Dr. Fritz Nathan St. Gall • 1940/41 Acting as an intermediary between the above and his client, Emil Bührle, Inventory Card as above, n. (8).
13Emil Bührle Zurich • 1941 until [d.] 28 November 1956 Acquired from the above for CHF 35.000, Inventory Card as above, n. (8), indicating the year and the price of the purchase and specifying «Dr. Emden» as the seller. A previous assumption that the sale took place in spring 1941 was based upon two additional entries in Dr. Feilchenfeldt’s Notebook as above, n. (11), dated 16 March 1941 and 2 May 1941. However, a reassessment of the Notebook has shown that it was not used as an agenda with an ongoing sequence of dates, and the date of 2 May 1941 bears no relevance to the purchase of the painting by Bührle. Since Hans Erich Emden made money transfers from Switzerland to New York before he left Switzerland in February 1941, File as above, n. (11), it may be assumed that the sale took in fact place before that date. The involvement of Dr. Fritz Nathan in the transaction is corroborated by the fact that Bührle, in 1953, referred his curator to Nathan when asked for information regarding provenance, see above, n. (8). Regarding the 1941 sale see Lukas Gloor, «Emil Bührle: A Twentieth-Century Modern Art Collection», in: The Emil Bührle Collection, History, Full Catalogue, and 70 Masterpieces, Swiss Institute for Art Research, Zurich (ed.), Munich 2021, pp. 85–87, 235; a more detailed report can be found on this website, under «Provenances».
14Given by the heirs of Emil Bührle to the Foundation E.G. Bührle Collection Zurich • 1960 Inv. 71.
AStEGB = Archive of the Foundation
E.G. Bührle Collection, Zurich