Van Gogh Museum Journal 2002
(2002)– [tijdschrift] Van Gogh Museum Journal– Auteursrechtelijk beschermd
[pagina 138]
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fig 1
Otto Wacker (far right) on trial in Berlin | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[pagina 139]
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The Wacker forgeries: a catalogue
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[pagina 140]
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ers comparatively modest pieces, works of the Dutch and Düsseldorf schools, and sometimes major works, an Israëls, an Achenbach, Schuch, Uhde, Trübner. [...] at the turn of the year 1925/26, W. suddenly appeared with a number of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, which he sold, one after the other, to Berlin art dealers. [...] at the end of 1926, W. moved into an imposing bel étage in one of the most elegant pre-war houses in Viktoriastraße.’Ga naar voetnoot5 The year 1922 does in fact seem a little too early, as Otto Wacker, alias Olinto Lovael, was still performing as a dancer in his native city of Düsseldorf in the winter of 1923/24.Ga naar voetnoot6 During the appeal proceedings Wacker himself is quoted as saying: ‘I gave up dancing around 1924, as my business with the Van Gogh pictures was expanding excessively.’Ga naar voetnoot7 Wacker terminated his interest in Kratkowski's hackney carriage business in 1925.Ga naar voetnoot8 However, there is no evidence that he was already dealing in art in 1918, this being the year in which Vase with asters, attributed to Wacker himself, is first documented. Likewise dubious is the Wacker provenance for the painting The small garden (F 442), which in 1925 was owned by the Elberfeld collector Julius Schmits.Ga naar voetnoot9 As Schmits and Von der Heydt (together with their wives) used to travel together regularly from Elberfeld to Paris in order to buy works of art, and both F 590 and F 442 had been offered for sale at the Galerie Eugène Blot,Ga naar voetnoot10 it is not improbable that these two paintings were purchased there at the same time, shortly before the First World War, and therefore never came into contact with Otto Wacker.Ga naar voetnoot11 Another still life, Vase with flowers (F 325), is known to have existed in EnglandGa naar voetnoot12 since the beginning of the 1920s before being auctioned at Christie's in London in 1927.Ga naar voetnoot13 Here, again, Wacker's interest in Van Gogh does not date back far enough. The painting Peasant with fork (F 685), which is definitely of Wacker provenance,Ga naar voetnoot14 manifests strong stylistic similarities to the painting Peasant walking along the fields (fig. 3a), the first owner of which was said to have been the painter Remy Matifas (1846-1896) of Batignolles near Paris.Ga naar voetnoot15 So far nobody has been able to give a convincing answer to the question as to why only one of the two paintings (F 685) had been offered for sale by Wacker, while the other was never once supposed to have passed through his hands. Walter Feilchenfeldt has pointed out that works presumed to have been painted by Leonhard Wacker and offeredfig. 2
Leonard Wacker, (Study for) Wheatfield with reaper, Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz for sale by his brother Otto are generally direct copies after original works the two brothers had seen, either at their owners' homes or in exhibitions, or purchased as reproductions.Ga naar voetnoot16 A particularly apt example is the authentic painting Olive trees (F 710 JH 1856), which at that time belonged to the collection of the Van Gogh translator Margarethe Mauthner. Shortly after taking this painting in commission from the Galerie Matthiesen, Otto Wacker was himself able to offer as many as three copies of the same motif in his gallery. Almost every Wacker forgery can be similarly traced back to an original that was either directly accessible to Otto Wacker and his brother or available to them in the form of a reproduction. However, for the aforementioned | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[pagina 141]
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fig 3a
Peasant walking along the fields (F 699a) paintings Vase with asters and Peasant walking along the fields there were no such originals in existence. The Wuppertal painting Vase with asters (F 590) is a free adaptation of the motifs of the Sunflower series, the sunflowers having been replaced by white and pink asters against a yellow background. It seems unlikely, however, fig. 3b
Vincent van Gogh, Morning: Peasant couple going to work (after Millet) (F 684 JH 1880), Otto Krebs Collection (at present St Petersburg, Hermitage) that a direct copy was made after one of the five comparable Sunflower versions or after one of the reproductions of these paintings, as the dark upper half of the vase and the shadow cast by the vase do not appear on any of them. The Peasant walking along the fields (fig. 3a) and the Peasant with fork are paraphrases of Van Gogh's Millet interpretation Morning: Peasant couple going to work (after Millet) (fig. 3b).Ga naar voetnoot17 Finally, The small garden cites the upper left corner of Garden with flowers (F 578 JH 1538), leaving out the church as well as the larger house in the original; it is thus a pastiche. In this case also no direct original exists. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[pagina 142]
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CatalogueThe following catalogue is based on several sources, some of which have never before been evaluated in connection with the Wacker forgeries. In addition to the details of provenance given in the 1928, 1938 and 1970 editions of De la Faille's catalogue raisonné (a work which must, however, be treated with some caution) and the studies by Walter Feilchenfeldt (1988/89),Ga naar voetnoot18 these sources consist primarily of the records kept at the Zentralarchiv der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin.Ga naar voetnoot19 In January 1929, Ludwig Justi exhibited the Kröller-Müller collection at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. He also exhibited, by way of comparison, several Wacker forgeries, keeping a further selection in his office for viewing by arrangement.Ga naar voetnoot20 The correspondence with the then-owners of these works has been preserved, though it has not been possible to match the works and their owners in every case. Letters were evidently written to Carl Sternheim of Uttwil, near Zurich, and Thomas Brown, Viktoriastraße 35, Berlin, as owners of non-authentic works, but it has not been possible to identify their pictures.Ga naar voetnoot21 Marie von Mendelssohn, on the other hand, owned an authentic work - Wheatfield with cypresses (F 717 JH 1756) - which she loaned to the Nationalgalerie for purposes of comparison.Ga naar voetnoot22 The Berlin dealer Paul Glaser made a statement during the trial of the Hamburg collector Elsa Wolf-Essberger against her former picture dealer Hugo Perls, confirming that he and Perls had ‘in the course of several years’ acquired ‘about 8 van Goghs from Wacker.’ They had not been taken in commission but bought straight out. Indeed, Perls owned 11 of the Wacker fakes. It was only possible to identify one of them (F 616) as the joint property of Glaser and Perls. Other names of owners have been sourced from contemporary newspaper and magazine reports on the Wacker affair and the ensuing trial. Reference in these reports to the fact that Wacker sold two works to the Paris and New York-based Wildenstein Gallery could be verified only in the case of one of the paintings (F 527a). No documentary evidence could be found concerning the first owners of the paintings F 539a, F 625a and F 691 named by Wacker himself during his trial. Like Wacker's frequently cited ‘Private collection, Switzerland,’ they, too, are in all probability fictitious. For this reason, in what follows those provenances for which there is no definitive evidence are stricken through, while those probably invented by Wacker himself are given a question mark. For the works in public collections, the respective museums have furnished details on their provenances.Ga naar voetnoot23 As regards the only two paintings to have been put up for auction, the auctioneers concerned gave me access to their archives.Ga naar voetnoot24 I am also indebted to Ralph Jentsch, Capri, for having pointed out that the painting F 691 was given by the owner of the Galerie Matthiesen, Franz Zatzenstein, to one of his employees when he was forced to close the gallery due to Nazi rise to power. That employee, Gertrud Wolowski, must have believed the painting to be authentic, as after the Second World War she sometimes referred to it as her ‘nest egg.’ In 1977, her heirs noticed a label from the Cassirer gallery on the back of the frame, which reads: ‘Paul Cassirer/Van Gogh/Ausstellung/1928’. Walter Feilchenfeldt believes that this painting, together with F 418a, F 527a and F 625a, are the four works lent by Wacker to the Van Gogh exhibition at the Galerie Paul Cassirer that first arose suspicion and therefore began the whole Wacker affair.Ga naar voetnoot25 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[pagina 143]
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A
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F 385 / H 812 / FF 1 / JH -
Self-portrait Oil on canvas, 41 × 32.5 cm Copy after F 522 JH 1356 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) Several pre-war catalogues list this painting as regular part of the collection of the Kroller-Muller Museum and show an illustration of it As there is no evidence that it was ever acquired for the collection, it seems more probable that Salomon van Deventer, a close advisor to Helene Kroller, temporarily gave it on loan
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F 387 / H - / FF 5 / JH -
Plate with bread rolls Oil on canvas, 46 × 57 cm Copy after F 386 JH 1365 (Kroller-Müller Museum, Otterlo) The forger misinterpreted the potatoes in the authentic painting as bread rolls
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F 418 / H 814 / FF 7 / JH -
Boats at Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Oil on canvas, 44 × 57.5 cm Copy after F 1431 JH 1542 (Private collection)
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F 418a / H - / FF 55 / JH -
Boats at Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Oil on canvas, 46 × 57 cm Copy after F 1430 JH 1505 (Nationalgalerie, Berlin)
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F 421 / H - / FF 9 / JH -
Street at Les-Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer Oil on canvas, 49 × 60 cm Copy after F 1435 JH 1506 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
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F 521 / H - / FF 12 / JH -
Self-portrait Oil on canvas, 61 × 51 cm Copy after F 522 JH 1356 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
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F 523 / H 813 / FF 14 / JH -
Self-portrait with easel Oil on canvas, 59 × 49 cm Copy after F 626 JH 1770 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) and F 522 JH 1356 (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam)
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F 527a / H - / FF 52 / JH -
Self-portrait with bandaged ear and pipe Oil on canvas, 43 × 33 cm Copy after F 527 JH 1657 (Courtauld Institute Galleries, London) and F 529 JH 1658 (Niarchos Collection, London)
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F 539 / H - / FF 16 / JH -
The zouave Oil on canvas, 65 × 54 cm Copy after F 424 JH 1488 (Private collection)
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F 539a / H -/ FF 17 / JH -
The zouave Oil on canvas, 62 × 52 cm Copy after F 424 JH 1488 (Private collection)
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F 577 / H - / FF 19 / JH -
The garden Oil on canvas, 43 × 33 5 cm Copy after F 1456 JH 1537 (Private collection)
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F 614 / H 816 / FF 21 / JH -
Cypresses Oil on canvas, 90 × 69.5 cm Copy after F 1525 JH 1747 (The Brooklyn Museum, New York)
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F 616 / H - / FF 24 / JH -
Cypresses Oil on canvas, 70 × 56 cm Copy after F 1525 JH 1747 (The Brooklyn Museum, New York)
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F 625a / H 630 / FF 42 / JH -
Wheatfield with rising moon Oil on canvas, 61 × 77.5 cm Copy after F 735 JH 1761 (Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo)
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F 639 / H 817 / FF 26 / JH -
Road with two poplars Oil on canvas, 55 × 45 cm Copy after F 638 JH 1797 (The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland) De la Faille's financial interest in this painting has been examined by Tsukasa Kōdera in idem, ‘The road in the Alpilles new documents concerning the acquisition of the Wacker-Van Gogh,’ in Shogeijutsu no Kyosei [Symbiosis of Art], Hiroshima 1995, pp 129-44
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F 681a / H - / FF 57 / JH -
Vase with roses Oil on canvas, 88.5 × 68.5 cm Copy after F 682 JH 1979 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Annenberg Collection, New York)
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F 685 / H - / FF 28 / JH -
Peasant with fork (after Millet) Oil on canvas, 57 × 47 5 cm Partial copy after F 684 JH 1880 (Otto Krebs Collection, at present St Petersburg, Hermitage)
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F 691 / H - / FF 30 / JH -
Sower Oil on canvas, 74.5 × 59 cm Copy after F 689 JH 1836 (Kroller-Müller-Museum, Otterlo)
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F 705 / H - / FF 32 / JH -
Sower Oil on canvas, 48 × 62 cm Copy after F 1442 JH 1508 (The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum/Thannhauser Collection, New York) or F 422 JH 1470 (Kroller-Müller Museum, Otterlo)
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F 710a / H - / FF 35 / JH -
Olive trees Oil on canvas, 72 × 91 cm Copy after F 710 JH 1856 (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis) |
When the New York owners consigned the painting for sale at Sotheby's in 1964, the auctioneers enquired about its status with the editorial board of the new De la Faille edition They received a negative reply and the work was not accepted for the sale
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F 713 / H - / FF 34 / JH -
Olive trees Oil on canvas, 55 × 65 cm Copy after F 710 JH 1856 (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis)
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F 715a / H - / FF 37 / JH -
Olive trees Oil on canvas, 72 × 91 cm Copy after F 710 JH 1856 (The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis)
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F 729 / H - FF 38 / JH -
Landscape Oil on canvas, 63 × 53 cm Partial copy after F 717 JH 1756 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) According to an inscription at the back of a photograph in the Zentralarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, this work belonged to the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1929 In several documents the painting is referred to as the ‘Detroit picture’ The museum itself, however, has no evidence of ownership
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F 736 / H 815 / FF 41 /JH -
Wheatfield with rising moon Oil on canvas, 56 × 87 cm Copy after F 735 JH 1761 (Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo)
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F 741 / H - / FF 44 / JH -
Cypresses Oil on canvas, 74 × 58 cm Partial copy after F 1540 JH 1732 (Kunsthalle, Bremen)
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F 741a / H - / FF 60 / JH -
Cypresses Oil on canvas, 74 × 58 cm Copy after F 1542 JH 1742 (The Art Institute of Chicago)
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F 812 / H - / FF 46 / JH -
The plain at Auvers Oil on canvas, 50 × 40 cm Copy after F 781 JH 2101 (Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Pittsburgh) Both the editors of the 1970 edition of De la Faille's catalogue raisonné and Jan Hulsker in his 1996 edition accepted the work as authentic The Phillips Collection in Washington, which both the editors of De la Faille 1970 and Hulsker name as the whereabouts of the painting, confirmed in 1998 that ‘there are no records of this work ever being in our collection’
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F 813 / H - / FF 47 / JH -
The plain at Auvers Oil on canvas, 70 × 53 cm Copy after F 781 JH 2101 (Carnegie Institute Museum of Art, Pittsburgh)
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F 823 / H - / FF 49 / JH -
Wheatfield Oil on canvas, 57 × 76 cm Copy after F 807 JH 1980 (Mellon Collection, Upperville/VA)
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F 824 / H - / FF 51 / JH -
Wheatfield with a tree Oil on canvas, 41 × 79 cm Partial copy after F 807 JH 1980 (Mellon Collection, Upperville/VA)
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FF 64
Wheatfield with reaper Oil on canvas Found by the police in Leonhard Wacker's studio
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B
Works probably not painted by Leonhard Wacker
F 325 / H - / FF 86 / JH -
Vase with flowers Oil on canvas, 41 × 33.5 cm
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F 442 / H - / FF 117 / JH -
The small garden Oil on canvas, 46 × 38 cm The 1925 Elberfeld exhibition cited by De la Faille might have been Kunst und Kunstgewerbe des 17-19 Jahrhunderts, which took place in the Stadtisches Museum Elberfeld in 1925 But as no catalogue was published and no documents referring to that exhibition have survived, there is no definitive evidence
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F 590 / H - / FF 88 / JH -
Vase with asters Oil on canvas, 50.5 × 42.5 cm
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- voetnoot1
- Cf F 617 JH 1753, F 618 JH 1773, and F 619 JH 1792.
- voetnoot2
- Berlin, Zentralarchiv der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, report dated 9 July 1929: ‘Für mich besteht kein Zweifel, daß dieses Stück wie die “Studie” zum “Selbstbildnis” eine Vorarbeit, d.h. eine Farbprobe für die entsprechende van Gogh-Fälschung (De la Faille Nr. 523) war. Die “Studie” ist auf eine Leinwand gemalt, die [...] einmal benutzt wurde und zwar in ganz flüchtigem Auftrag [...] Stilleben im Entwurf enthielt, das dann wieder abgewaschen wurde. Man sieht links noch einen Kreis mit der Eintragung der Bezeichnung “Orange”, ferner die Farbe, mit der der Hintergrund ausgefüllt war. Die Leinwand war mehrmals aufgeheftet, was durch die Löcher, durch Reissnägel bewirkt, oben und unten ersichtlich wird. Ohne viel Vorzeichnung sind in etwa 6 Farb-Einheiten die von Wacker für ein Original des van Goghschen Getreidefeldes vermuteten Farben in kräftigen Pinselzügen hingesetzt. Genau wie bei der “Studie” zum bezw. nach dem Selbstbildnis hat eine Reproduktion und kein Original Leonhard Wacker wahrend der Bemalung der Leinwand vor Augen gestanden. Es ist möglich, daß er eine gedruckte oder schriftliche Farbenangabe des Originals (De la Faille Nr 628) dabei zur Hand hatte. Mit den Original-Farben van Goghs haben die Farben der Wackerschen Studie nichts zu tun’
- voetnoot3
- Carl Georg Heise (ed.), Die Sammlung des Freiherrn August von der Heydt, Wuppertal, Leipzig 1918, no. 97.
- voetnoot4
- Walter Feilchenfeldt, ‘Van Gogh fakes. the Wacker affair, with an illustrated catalogue of the forgeries,’ Simiolus 19 (1989), no. 4, p. 293
- voetnoot5
- Grete Ring, ‘Der Fall Wacker,’ Kunst & Künstler 31 (May 1932), pp. 153-65: ‘Ein jugendlicher Tänzer, Olindo Lowael [sic], alias Otto Wacker, Sohn eines Düsseldorfer Malers, taucht eines Tages im Gesichtskreis des Berliner Kunsthandels auf. Zunächst - man schreibt etwa 1922 - offeriert er dem kleineren Handel vergleichsweise bescheidene Objekte, Arbeiten der holländischen und Düsseldorfer Schule, als Hauptstücke einmal einen Israels, einen Achenbach, Schuch, Uhde, Trübner. [...] Ende 1925/26 erscheint W. plötzlich mit einer Anzahl von Bildern Vincent van Goghs, die er, eines nach dem anderen, im Berliner Handel absetzt. [...] Ende 1926 richtet W. eine stattliche “Belétage” in einem der elegantesten Vorkriegshäuser der Viktoriastraße ein.’ Cf also Verena Tafel, ‘Kunsthandel in Berlin vor 1945,’ Interessengemeinschaft Berliner Kunsthändler e.V. (ed.), Kunst Konzentriert 1987, Berlin 1987, pp. 195-225.
- voetnoot6
- Joachim Goll: Kunstfälscher Berlin 1962, p. 173.
- voetnoot7
- Berliner Börsenkurier (6 April 1932). ‘Etwa im Jahre 1924 habe ich das Tanzen aufgegeben, da sich mein Kunsthandel mit den van Gogh-Bildern zu sehr ausdehnte.’
- voetnoot8
- Frank Arnau, Kunst der Fälscher. Fälscher der Kunst Düsseldorf 1959, p. 260.
- voetnoot9
- When the estate of Julius Schmits's widow was auctioned by Auktionshaus Lempertz, Cologne, in May 1955, this painting was no longer in the collection.
- voetnoot10
- Cf. details of provenance given in De la Faille.
- voetnoot11
- According the Von der Heydt-Museum, no records of the time and place of purchase have been preserved.
- voetnoot12
- The painting was exhibited in 1923 in Manchester at Thos. Agnew & Sons, Masterpieces of French art of the 19th century in aid of the Lord Mayor's appeal for the hospitals, no. 20
- voetnoot13
- London (Christie's), 29 April 1927, lot 44
- voetnoot14
- That this work was among the paintings sold by Otto Wacker is documented by a contemporary photograph of the courtroom during the Wacker trial in which the painting is clearly visible as one of the pieces of evidence
- voetnoot15
- Provenance according to auction catalogue Paintings and drawings by Van Gogh, Degas, Pissarro and Other Modern Artists, New York (Parke-Bernet Galleries), 24 October 1951, lot 92 (Peasant walking along the fields).
- voetnoot16
- Feilchenfeldt, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 289-316.
- voetnoot17
- This is particularly clear from the rendering of the wooden clogs, the right arms and hands of the figures and the background. As only the man's right hand is visible in the original painting, the forger did not have a depiction of a left hand at his disposal. He therefore had to conceal it under the peasant woman's apron.
- voetnoot18
- Walter Feilchenfeldt (with Han Veenenbos), Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cassirer, Berlin: the reception of Van Gogh in Germany from 1901 to 1914, Zwolle 1988, and idem, op. cit. (note 4).
- voetnoot19
- Zentralarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Actae NG I/723, NG I/1373. I wish to thank Jörn Grabowski and Petra Ettinger for their assistance and information.
- voetnoot20
- I wish to thank Kristian Müller-Osten, Berlin, for having pointed out that, contrary to the information in De la Faille, not all these works were shown to the public.
- voetnoot21
- Brown's address was the same as that of Paul Cassirer's gallery. However, according to Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zurich, who manages the gallery's archive, the addressee cannot be identified.
- voetnoot22
- She acknowledged receipt of the returned painting on 30 November 1932.
- voetnoot23
- I wish to thank Monique Hageman and Fieke Pabst, Amsterdam (Van Gogh Museum); Martha op de Coul, The Hague (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie); Tsukasa Kōdera, Takarazuka/Japan; Ann Hoenigswald, Washington (National Gallery of Art); Sabine Fehleman and Udo Garweg, Wuppertal (Von der Heydt-Museum); and the Thannhaüser Estate, Geneva.
- voetnoot24
- I wish to thank Claudia Herrgen (†), Selei Nassery (Sotheby's, Frankfurt) and Alexandra Kindermann (Christie's, London)
- voetnoot25
- Feilchenfeldt, op. cit. (note 4), p. 294 (note 12).