The Wildenstein family is rejecting legal claims from the descendants of the Parisian art collector Alphonse Kann for the return of seven illuminated manuscripts which were looted by the Nazis.
The Wildensteins have long had a reputation for discretion, even secrecy, but the New York gallery has now opted for a more open approach, and has provided The Art Newspaper with detailed documentation supporting its case. Guy Wildenstein, speaking for the family, says he is “confident that our claim to the manuscripts is unequivocal.” He adds that the Wildensteins are “deeply disturbed by the allegations that we are in possession of works of art stolen by the Nazis from a fellow French Jew and that we now, out of arrogance, refuse to return them.”
A year ago a group of eleven Kann descendants, headed by Francis Warin, initiated legal action against Wildenstein & Co in the New York Supreme Court. The descendants claim that the seven manuscripts had belonged to Alphonse Kann when they were seized by the Nazis in 1940. Six of the manuscripts are late fifteenth-century Books of Hours and religious works, while the other is an early seventeenth-century Mughal text. The Kann side values the manuscripts at up to $15 million, but Wildenstein puts the figure at closer to $2 million (at least half accounted for by the Carpentin Book of Hours, illuminated by the Master of the Dresden Hours).
The Kann descendants cite three sets of documents as evidence of their claim: lists drawn up by the Germans in 1940 after they seized property from Kann’s house in St-Germain-en-Laye, corresponding numbered pencil markings with the letters “Ka” (for Kann) which are inscribed in the inside covers of the seven manuscripts, and a series of Property Cards later filled out by American forces at the Central Collecting Point for looted art in Munich. At first glance, the fact that the manuscripts are inscribed with the “Ka” identification is very strong evidence they belonged to Kann, but Daniel Wildenstein, the elderly head of the family, claims that this was the result of “a great misunderstanding”.
Hidden treasures
The existence of the disputed manuscripts only became known in November 1996 when London dealer Sam Fogg approached Wildenstein, asking about a specific folio in which he was interested. This was not for sale, but further questions led to Wildenstein producing the ones with the “Ka” inscriptions. Mr Fogg then called in Professor James Marrow of Princeton University to give his specialist advice. Professor Marrow examined the works in March 1997, but he was concerned about the “Ka” numbers inscribed in the inside covers. Fearing that they might have been looted, he felt that it was only proper to inform the Kann heirs. This led to their legal claim, which was filed in July last year.
Wildenstein has shown The Art Newspaper strong evidence suggesting that the gallery had acquired the disputed manuscripts between 1909 and 1930. For instance, the Carpentin Book of Hours appears to have bought from the comte de Louvencourt of Abbeville in 1927. Evidence for the 1927 purchase is a letter of 10 July 1950 from Paris dealer Paul Jonas, who served as the intermediary, and who wrote in order to support the Wildenstein restitution claim after the war. The Louvencourt provenance is also noted in an 1894 publication. Similar evidence has been produced for the other six manuscripts. However, to add to the confusion, three of the disputed manuscripts had some years earlier belonged to Edouard Kann, a great uncle of Alphonse, but there is documentation to show that these had been purchased by Wildenstein in 1909 and 1930.
According to Wildenstein, the seven manuscripts were among more than 500 works of art which were looted from them during the German occupation. The gallery says that the manuscripts were seized from their vault at the Banque de France in Paris on 30 October 1940 and moved a week later to the Nazi art store at the Jeu de Paume, next to the Louvre. Wildenstein now assumes that there was a mix-up at the Jeu de Paume, and the manuscripts were wrongly identified as coming from the Kann collection, which was also looted during the same period. The manuscripts were later taken to Füssen, in Bavaria, and in 1945 they were recovered by American forces and transferred to the Central Collecting Point in Munich.
Kann, who had left Paris for London in 1938, appears to have made no effort to claim the manuscripts up to the time of his death in 1948, although he did claim dozens of other works of art.
Georges Wildenstein had fled to New York in 1941 and the following year he filed a lengthy claim with the American authorities which listed eight manuscripts (including the seven now disputed), although his descriptions were somewhat vague. After the war he pursued the matter vigorously and some of his manuscript claims are recorded in the published “List of property removed from France during the war” of 1947. Ultimately the seven manuscripts now in dispute were restored to Georges Wildenstein between 1949 and 1952.
Stephen Somerstein, the New York lawyer now representing the Kann descendants, argues that the Nazis were “meticulous” in recording art loot and could not have made a mistake in inscribing the “Ka” numbers. He told The Art Newspaper that the Wildenstein evidence does not prove that the gallery owned the manuscripts in 1940. “The only relevant thing is that the Nazi records show that they were in Kann’s house in 1940. The burden of proof is on Wildenstein to show that the Nazis made a mistake.”
Wildenstein’s role
Why then has the dispute arisen so many years after the manuscripts were restituted to Wildenstein? Until four year ago, when Mr Fogg enquired about manuscripts, there were very few people who knew that they were held by the gallery (which specialises in paintings, and is not known as a dealer in manuscripts). Critics might argue that Wildenstein could have been tempted to quietly hold onto the restituted manuscripts after the war, only putting them on the market many decades later.
It may seem curious that it was not until 1996 that Wildenstein made their first effort to sell the manuscripts, some of which had been acquired as early as 1909 (and at the latest, by 1930). However, the gallery has a legendary reputation for building up stock and often only selling decades later. As Nathan Wildenstein, founder of the business, once said: “Never buy a painting you can’t afford to hold on to.”
When the Kann descendants finally learned about the Wildenstein manuscripts, their suspicions were inevitably fuelled by the gallery’s wartime reputation. Although Georges Wildenstein had fled Paris in early 1940, initially to the south of France and later to America, he had allowed the “Aryanisation” of the business. During the German occupation the gallery therefore continued in business, under Roger Dequoy. According to a declassified 1946 US Office of Strategic Services report on the art trade under the Nazis, the Wildenstein gallery in Paris had been in contact with other dealers who were Nazi collaborators. The report stated on Wildenstein: “In touch with Haberstock [the leading Nazi art dealer] in 1942. Possessed full knowledge Dequoy’s transactions subsequent to ‘Aryanisation’ of the Wildenstein firm. In contact with Fabiani [with Dequoy, the arch-collaborationist of the Paris art milieu] summer 1945, who occupied his suite at the Dorchester in London.”
Guy Wildenstein recently commented that the 1946 US report is of “unreliable worth”, and the gallery is disturbed at suggestions that the “Aryanisation” of the gallery implicates the family. Wildenstein therefore initiated legal action to sue writer Hector Feliciano over allegations made in his 1995 book The lost museum: the Nazi conspiracy to steal the world’s greatest works of art. Although last May a Paris court upheld a lower-court ruling in favour of Feliciano, Wildenstein is now taking the case to the French high court.
Meanwhile, the battle over the disputed Wildenstein manuscripts has taken a new turn. The Art Newspaper can reveal that three of them have now been purchased by London dealer Sam Fogg. These include the Carpentin Book of Hours, the most important of the group, worth over $1 million. The second most valuable manuscript, the Mughal Boostan, was also bought by Mr Fogg, and was at one time recently on offer to a major American museum. Mr Fogg’s third acquisition is the late fifteenth-century French School Book of Hours. So far in the New York Supreme Court there has been wrangling over procedural issues, and some of these may be settled in court next month. The substantive case could then be heard next year.
The protagonists
The manuscripts dispute involves two major inter-war dealer-collectors, both Jewish, with foreign roots, and living in France. The Wildensteins and Kanns both left Paris before the Nazi occupation.
The Wildensteins
The gallery was started by Nathan Wildenstein (1851-1934), from Alsace, who set up a highly successful gallery in Paris. He was the one who is said to have acquired the seven disputed manuscripts. The business later passed to his son, Georges (1892-1963), who fled from Paris in 1940 and emigrated to New York the following year. After his death the business was taken over by his son Daniel (b.1917). Daniel’s son Guy now heads the gallery (his brother Alec recently hit the headlines with his divorce from Jocelyne). The gallery’s head office is in New York, with branches in London and Tokyo and a research institute in Paris.
The Kanns
Alphonse Kann (1870-1948) was born in Vienna and brought up in Paris, where he became a distinguished collector and dealer. In 1938 he left for London, where he died a decade later. Edouard Kann, a great uncle of Alphonse, was also a collector and once owned three of the disputed manuscripts. Francis Warin, who is leading the claim for the manuscripts, is a great nephew of Alphonse Kann. Although not involving Wildenstein, the Kann descendants are also now claiming at least four twentieth-century paintings in museums in the US and France:
Braque, “The guitar player” (1914), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (purchased 1981); Léger, “Smoke over the roofs” (1911), Minneapolis Institute of Arts (bequeathed 1961); Matisse, “Brook with aloes” (1907), The Menil Collection, Houston (purchased 1950); Picasso, “Still-life with Job” (1916), Museum of Modern Art, New York (acquired 1979).
The disputed manuscripts
“Ka 879” French School (Poitiers), St Radegund, c.1500. Wildenstein provenance: purchased from Edouard Kann, Paris, 1909. “Ka 880” Bourges School, Book of Hours, c.1500. Wildenstein provenance: purchased from Frank Sabin, London, 1909. “Ka 881” French School, Book of Hours, c.1500. Wildenstein provenance: purchased from Edouard Kann, Paris, 1909. “Ka 882” French School, Book of Hours, late fifteenth-century. Wildenstein provenance: purchased from G. Schick, Paris, 1928. “Ka 883” Master of the Dresden Hours, Book of Hours of the Carpentin Family, second half of fifteenth century. Wildenstein provenance: purchased from Comte de Louvencourt, Abbeville, 1927. “Ka 884” Florence School, Book of Hours, c.1480. Wildenstein provenance: purchased through Paul Jonas, Paris, 1927. “Ka 886” Mughal School, Boostan, early seventeenth-century. Wildenstein provenance: purchased at Edouard Kann sale, Paris, 1930.