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Lot Essay
While the collections of Maximilian Baron von Goldschmidt-Rothschild (1843-1940) contained paintings by Rembrandt, Hals and other Dutch masters, it is the decorative arts, Limoges enamels, Italian maiolica, Meissen and Vienna porcelain and, above all, silver, that was the nucleus of his collection. On the occasion of Baron Maximilian’s 80th birthday in 1923, the celebrated art historian and art critic Dr. Adolph Donath wrote of Baron Maximilian’s Kunstkammer that ‘…only at Waddesdon, the British Museum, the Wallace Collection, Schloss Rosenborg [the Royal Danish collections] and the Green Vaults in Dresden can be found pieces of similar quality.’ Donath further noted that Baron Maximilian’s collection of silver animals was ‘unvergleichlich’ – unrivaled or without equal (Der Kunstwanderer, vol. 4⁄5, 1922⁄23, p. 436). An exceptional silvered-bronze, enameled silver and gilt-bronze automaton clock formed as an elephant, Augsburg, circa 1600-1610, formerly in Maximilian's collection was sold in these rooms on 13 October 2021, lot 7 ($2,610,000).
On November 9-10, 1938, Germany was convulsed by a night of murder and mayhem, the Nazi-sanctioned Novemberpogrome, better known as Kristallnacht. The following day, November 11, Baron Maximilian was forced to ‘sell’ his entire collection to the City of Frankfurt. Grotesquely, the acting mayor of Frankfurt, Dr. Friedrich Krebs, claims to have ‘saved’ the collection from destruction by having the city take ownership of the collection. Earlier in 1938, Baron Maximilian had been forced to commission an inventory of the collection (a Taxationliste imposed on Jewish collections). The collection was purchased for just over 2.5 million Reichsmarks and, adding insult to injury, the funds were paid into a frozen account inaccessible to the family (K. Weiler, ‘Provenance research and Circulation: Examples from the Maximilian von Goldschmidt Collection,’ History of Knowledge, 18 December 2019). A large part of the purchase price for the art collection went directly to the respective responsible tax offices, partly for the Judenvermögensabgab [the Jewish tax] to be paid by Maximilian himself and partly for the Judenvermögensabgabe as well as the Reichsfluchtsteuer [Reich Flight Tax] imposed on his son Albert. The Goldschmidt-Rothschild Palais, at Bockenheimer Landstraβe 10, had already been ‘sold’ a month earlier, on September 5, and was now opened to the public as a branch of the Museum für Kunsthandwerk. Baron Maximillian was allowed to remain in a small rented apartment. He remained there until his death in 1940, at the age of 97 (C. E. Brennan and K. Weiler, ‘A Provenance Mystery: Two Medieval Silver Beakers at the Met Cloisters').
After the war, the heirs of Baron Maximilian requested the return of the collection, the 1938 forced sale was eventually voided and much of the collection was returned to the heirs of Baron Maximilian by February of 1949 (K. Weiler, 2019, note 7). Some of these works, including the present tankard, were subsequently shipped to New York in 1949 and sold at auction a year later in the Parke-Bernet Galleries on 13-14 April 1950, lot 111 – as described in a New York Times article of 1950 ('Art Nazis ‘Bought’ Will be Sold Here’).
On November 9-10, 1938, Germany was convulsed by a night of murder and mayhem, the Nazi-sanctioned Novemberpogrome, better known as Kristallnacht. The following day, November 11, Baron Maximilian was forced to ‘sell’ his entire collection to the City of Frankfurt. Grotesquely, the acting mayor of Frankfurt, Dr. Friedrich Krebs, claims to have ‘saved’ the collection from destruction by having the city take ownership of the collection. Earlier in 1938, Baron Maximilian had been forced to commission an inventory of the collection (a Taxationliste imposed on Jewish collections). The collection was purchased for just over 2.5 million Reichsmarks and, adding insult to injury, the funds were paid into a frozen account inaccessible to the family (K. Weiler, ‘Provenance research and Circulation: Examples from the Maximilian von Goldschmidt Collection,’ History of Knowledge, 18 December 2019). A large part of the purchase price for the art collection went directly to the respective responsible tax offices, partly for the Judenvermögensabgab [the Jewish tax] to be paid by Maximilian himself and partly for the Judenvermögensabgabe as well as the Reichsfluchtsteuer [Reich Flight Tax] imposed on his son Albert. The Goldschmidt-Rothschild Palais, at Bockenheimer Landstraβe 10, had already been ‘sold’ a month earlier, on September 5, and was now opened to the public as a branch of the Museum für Kunsthandwerk. Baron Maximillian was allowed to remain in a small rented apartment. He remained there until his death in 1940, at the age of 97 (C. E. Brennan and K. Weiler, ‘A Provenance Mystery: Two Medieval Silver Beakers at the Met Cloisters').
After the war, the heirs of Baron Maximilian requested the return of the collection, the 1938 forced sale was eventually voided and much of the collection was returned to the heirs of Baron Maximilian by February of 1949 (K. Weiler, 2019, note 7). Some of these works, including the present tankard, were subsequently shipped to New York in 1949 and sold at auction a year later in the Parke-Bernet Galleries on 13-14 April 1950, lot 111 – as described in a New York Times article of 1950 ('Art Nazis ‘Bought’ Will be Sold Here’).