Arthur Maier Collection – Marianne Matella

Once again, the Cologne auction house VAN HAM took on the responsible role of mediator in a restitution negotiation. After five years of research and negotiation, now for the first time (!) - and then two - works from the important art collection of the Jewish porcelain manufacturer Arthur Maier (†1935) come up for auction. The two paintings "Hunting Still Life with Songbirds" by Jan Fyt and Antonio Francesco Peruzzini's work "Large Landscape with Figure Staffage" are part of the auction "Fine Art" on June 2, 2021. They were until 1935 part of the art collection of Arthur Maier in Karlovy Vary, which was placed in 1925 by the magazine "Der Sammler" in the "series of the great European private collections".

After Maier's death, the collection, as well as the luxurious Karlovy Vary spa house "Villa Splendid", passed to his illegitimate daughter Marianne Matella as her sole heir. Due to the tense political situation in the Sudetenland with the imminent invasion of the German troops, the spa guests stayed away, causing Matella financial difficulties. Planning to emigrate to Switzerland, she sold a work by Goya to the State Gallery in Prague and gave a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder to a bank as collateral for borrowed money. But it was too late to emigrate. In her memoirs, which are among others in the State District Archives of Karlovy Vary, Marianne Matella writes in 1946: "Immediately after the occupation of Karlovy Vary, I was incessantly persecuted by the Gestapo." It continues, "On the day the local synagogue was burned down, a horde of about 15 Nazis entered my house. I hid in the attic and suffered a nervous breakdown." From now on, she was not "only" under the observation of the Gestapo; her assets were also controlled by a Reich German trustee. In this regard, Matella wrote: "An auctioneer from the Lempertz company in Cologne was sent to me." Another writing says: "I was forced to sell a collection of old paintings inherited from my father in Cologne."

This sale took place on November 30, 1939 at Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne. The auction catalog lists 37 works from an "important Sudeten German collection," including the two paintings by Jan Fyt and Antonio Francesco Peruzzini, which at the time was attributed to his famous teacher Alessandro Magnasco because of the very close artistic relationship. The auction catalog does not refer to the provenance of the two lots, but it does refer to two articles by Otto Kletzl from the magazine Belvedere from 1931 and 1932. If one researches these articles, one quickly arrives at the provenance of the paintings, as the articles are dedicated to the "Paintings of the Arthur Maier-Karlsbad Collection". This then explains the reference to an "important Sudeten German collection" on the first pages of the catalog.

Since Arthur Maier's community of heirs was only in the process of forming at the time the two works were consigned to Van Ham (2016), there were no references in the Lost Art database until then. It was only through the mediation of Anna Rubin of the HCPO (Holocaust Claim Processing Office) in New York, USA, that an agreement was reached after five years with the Dresden lawyer Dr. Sabine Rudolph, who represents the heirs of Arthur Maier / Marianne Matella. Thanks to the sellers' awareness of their responsibility towards the past and the support of Markus Eisenbeis, Managing Director of Van Ham Kunstauktionen, who acted as mediator with his experience in restitutions, the respective parties involved were able to agree on restitution.