The Cleveland Museum of Art

• Provenance
  Before 1906

  Possibly Dr. Izidor Deutsch [d. 1906], Budapest

  Probably until 1925

  Maximilian Mauthner, Schloss Feistritz, Wechsel, Austria

  1925

  (Sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, June 15, 1925, lot 69)

  Before 1940

  Possibly Dr. Paul Eger [1881-1947], Basel

  1940

  (Sale, Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, Nov. 7-9, 1940, lot 1250, sold to Galerie Nathan)

  1940-

  (Galerie Nathan, Zürich)

  By 1970

  (Erich von Kreibig, Munich)

  1972

  (Sale, Neumeister, Munich, Sept. 20-22, 1972, lot 1689

  From 1972?

  (Galerie Grünwald, Munich)

  By 1987?

  Private collection, Munich

  1988

  (David Carritt, Ltd./Artemis Group, London, and Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

  1988-

  The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

  Provenance Footnotes

  1 A red wax seal on the back of the painting reads: “Dr. Deutsch Ügyved [attorney] Budapest.”  This seal may refer to Dr. Izidor Deutsch, a Hungarian attorney who lived in Budapest, although thus far no documentary confirmation of his ownership has been located.  His will, for instance, makes no references to any paintings or to an art collection. 

  2 Mautner, a banker, purchased Schloss Feistritz in 1922, so if the attachment of Feistritz to Mautner’s name in Rupert Feuchtmüller's Waldmüller catalogue raisonné is at all linked with Mautner’s place of residence when he owned the painting, then his earliest possible year of ownership would be 1922. 

  3 Feuchtmüller's catalogue raisonné says that Mautner had the painting until 1925. However, because the Dorotheum’s records do not include buyer/consignor information for sales prior to the late 1960s, that Mautner was the consignor to the sale has not been confirmed.

  4 The catalogue raisonné lists Dr. Paul Eger as a former owner of the Waldmüller, while the information provided to CMA by David Carritt, Ltd. situates it in a Basel private collection, presumably Eger's, prior to Galerie Nathan, although it is unknown whether Carritt knew of Eger’s identity.  In 1993 CMA curator Ann Tzeutschler Lurie wrote to dealer Peter Nathan to inquire whether the Waldmüller had been in the possession of Eger.  Nathan responded that “it is very well possible that [Eger], whom I myself knew, owned the painting”; his name, however, does not appear in Galerie Nathan’s records.  The original source for the inclusion of Eger in this provenance is unclear.  Eger was a theatre director and dramaturg who worked at the Stadttheaters Luzern and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg.  Eger’s former assistant did not think that he had an art collection (Brigitte Abeida (Luzerner Theater), email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Aug. 24, 2015), a recollection that is at odds with Peter Nathan’s thoughts on Eger as a possible former owner of the painting.  Another possibility is that Paul Eger was not a former owner of the painting: Izidor Deutsch was the brother-in-law of the Egger brothers, Béla Bernát, Henrik, Jakab, and David, of Egger & Co., a Budapest electrical company.  Deutsch’s will does make several mentions of the Egger family, although it does not refer to his art collection.   Deutsch was also named guardian of one of his brother-in-laws’ sons.  While it could certainly be nothing more than a coincidence that Deutsch (if he was indeed the owner of the Waldmüller) was closely related to the Egger family, one must consider the possibility that the name “Eg[g]er” was seen at some point in connection with the painting, and Paul Eger, who was involved in artistic circles and who knew Peter Nathan, was assumed to have been the Eger who owned the painting.  If it was in fact the Egger family who had the Waldmüller, then their positioning in the provenance could be incorrect: perhaps “Paul Eger” was placed after the Dorotheum sale due to his life dates when in fact “Egger” belongs directly after Deutsch, with Mautner following.

  5 The records of Galerie Nathan include a photograph of the Waldmüller in the gallery's 1941-1942 album and describe its sale “durch [through] Fischer LU[cerne],” which suggests that the painting was purchased at the Galerie Fischer sale in 1941.  Gallery records do not show to whom Nathan sold the painting, although Peter Nathan wrote to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie in 1993 that it was possible the buyer was von Kreibig, although they had no confirming documentation. Johannes Fischer suspected that Nathan may have sold the painting again through Fischer in 1941 or 1942, perhaps in a private sale.

  6 In late 1970, Munich dealer Erich von Kreibig corresponded extensively with CMA curator Ann Tzeutschler Lurie regarding the museum’s interest in possibly acquiring the Waldmüller from Kreibig.  In January 1971, Lurie informed Kreibig that the museum would not be purchasing the painting, in part due to budget considerations.  Bruno Grimschitz’s Waldmüller monograph, published in 1957, gives a Munich private collector as the painting’s current owner, and CMA records situate the painting with von Kreibig in that year.  While it is certainly possibly that von Kreibig had the painting in his personal collection by 1957 and then offered it to CMA in 1970, there are no indications in the documentation that Kreibig himself owned the painting for a lengthy period of time. All that is known about von Kreibig’s acquisition of the Waldmüller is that his family bought it in Switzerland.  Thus, it may be that an unidentified Munich collector owned it in 1957 who may or may not have consigned the painting to von Kreibig by 1970.

  7 In 1997, Neumeister informed CMA that the painting had previously been in the collection of a Munich private collector who had died some time earlier; it is unknown whether or not this refers to Erich von Kreibig, and whether Neumeister is referring to the consignor to the auction or to a prior owner. Kreibig wrote to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie on December 31, 1971 (in CMA curatorial file) that he had been unable to sell the painting, so he may have consigned it to Neumeister for sale.  

  8 The order in which Galerie Grünwald and the unidentified Munich private collector should appear in this provenance is unclear.  According to the provenance information provided to CMA by David Carritt, Ltd., the painting was in a Munich private collection in 1987.  The catalogue raisonné situates the painting with Galerie Grünwald in 1986, although his sources for the inclusion of Grünwald in the provenance are not specified, while CMA records indicate the painting was with Grünwald in 1972.  This would suggest that Grünwald was the unknown buyer at the 1972 Neumeister sale, but it seems unlikely that the gallery would still have had the painting in its possession in 1986, as Feuchtmüller's chronology suggests. Carritt’s provenance makes no mention of Grünwald, and so it may be that Grünwald was the buyer at the Neumeister sale, and the painting was then sold to the private collector listed by Carritt.  Alternatively, Grünwald may have been the intermediary between the private collector and Carritt/Sanct Lucas, although this, too, seems doubtful because Roman Herzig of Galerie Sanct Lucas does not recall Grünwald’s involvement.  

  9 See note 6.
• Citations
  David Carrit, Ltd., invoice, July 14, 1988, in CMA curatorial file

  Roman Herzig, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, March 19, 2015, in CMA curatorial file.

  David Carritt, Ltd., painting information sheet, in CMA curatorial file.

  Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865: Leben, Schriften, Werke. Wien: C. Brandstätter, 1996.

  Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865: Leben, Schriften, Werke. Wien: C. Brandstätter, 1996.

  Neumeister, letter to Hannelore Osborne, March 3, 1997, in CMA curatorial file.

  Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865: Leben, Schriften, Werke. Wien: C. Brandstätter, 1996.

  Erich von Kreibig, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, Oct. 11, 1970, in CMA curatorial file.

  Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, fax to Peter Nathan, Jan. 26, 1993, in CMA curatorial file.

  Peter Nathan, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, Feb. 2, 1993, in CMA curatorial file.

  
  Johannes Nathan, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Feb. 24, 2015, in CMA curatorial file.

  Galerie Fischer. Nachlass des Herrn R., Genf ; aus Glarner und anderem Privatbesitz...italienische Meister des 14. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, spanisiche, französische, deutsche, englische und holländische Schule, schweizer Meister. Lucerne: Galerie Fischer, Nov. 7-9, 1940.

  Valérie Matzner, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, April 9, 2015, in CMA curatorial file.

  Johannes Nathan, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Feb. 25, 2015, in CMA curatorial file

  Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865: Leben, Schriften, Werke. Wien: C. Brandstätter, 1996.

  Dorotheum (Wien). Gemälde des 19. Jahrhunderts, Gemälde alter Meister, Aquarelle, Miniaturen, Antiquitäten, Bronzen, Möbel, Keramik, Graphik. June 15-16, 1925.

  Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865: Leben, Schriften, Werke. Wien: C. Brandstätter, 1996.

  Katja Fischer, email to Victoria Sears Goldman, Nov. 24, 2014, in CMA curatorial file.

  null

  Feuchtmüller, Rupert. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller 1793-1865: Leben, Schriften, Werke. Wien: C. Brandstätter, 1996.

  David Carritt, Ltd., painting information sheet, in CMA curatorial file.

  Les Vince, email to Victoria Sears Goldman and Louis Adrean, Sept. 4, 2014, in CMA curatorial file.

  Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. “Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller in the Cleveland Museum of Art: Portrait of Crescentia, Countess Zichy (later Countess Széchenyi) with a Parrot and a Camellia in a Mountainous Landscape.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 81, no. 1 (1994): 3-17. Reproduced: cover, details p. 9-11; Mentioned: p. 3-17 www.jstor.org

  Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 637-638, Vol. II, no. 223

  Mackie, Louise W. Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th-21st Century. Cleveland; New Haven: Cleveland Museum of Art; Yale University Press, 2015. Mentioned and reproduced: P. 441, fig. 10.31
• Exhibition History
  Object in Focus: Countess Széchenyi and Her Prestigious Kashmir Shawl. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 25, 2003-January 4, 2004).

  The Year in Review for 1988. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 1-May 14, 1989).

  Vienna, Galerie St. Lucas. Winterausstellung (1987-88), no. 25, Porträt einer Gräfin Szechenyi (repr.).
• Cite this Page
  {{cite web|title=Countess Széchenyi|url=false|author=Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller|year=1828|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}