'From the early days of my youth, I recall that my mother was deeply attached to the paintings and drawings of great masters which she and my father had collected over the years of their married life. My parents did their best to awaken their children’s appreciation of great art…. Thus she endeavored to imbue her children with the respect and affection for her collection of paintings and drawings which she herself felt at all times.'
Henriette ‘Harrie’ Hildegard Hirschland (néeSimons) (1889–1968) [Fig 1] and Kurt Martin Hirschland (1882–1957) [Fig 3] were leading members of cultural and philanthropic life in Essen, amassing a significant art collection in the years leading up to World War II. Married in 1911, they had four children: August Simon (1911–1934), Marianne Hildegard (1912–2007),Paul Michael (1914–1988) and Ruth Else (1920–1996). With their children, the couple lived in Haus Krawehl on Haumannplatz [Fig 4] in Essen from circa 1920 to 1935.
Kurt and his brother Georg ran Simon Hirschland Bank in Essen, Germany, which had been founded by their grandfather in 1841. As a leading German financier during the interwar years, Kurt played a significant part in the country’s economic and industrial growth, supporting coal, steel and electrical industries in the Ruhr, and forging strong links with banking businesses across the country. The success of his business allowed the Hirschlands to collect widely and voraciously.
In the home of Harrie and Kurt Hirschland in Essen hung Claude Monet’s idyllic garden scene. After the war, the piece had a place of prominence in their New York apartment [Fig 2]. Among brother Georg Simon’s collection was a now-iconic Van Gogh, Le moissonneur (d’après Millet) [Fig 5]. Brother Franz Herbert owned a lovely Cézanne that he gifted to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1957 [Fig 6]; and Harrie and Kurt’s son, Paul,owned a 1908 Kandinsky, another example of the family eye seeking out quintessential masterpieces [Fig 7]. Paul would also marry into another art-collecting family, that of Claribel and Etta Cone of Baltimore [Fig 8].
.jpg)
In Essen in the 1930s, however, the Jewish Hirschlands faced the persecution wrought by the Nazi government, including the ‘Aryanisation’ of the Simon Hirschland Bank in 1938 [Fig 9 a and b].
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Block quote
Ordered list
Unordered list
Bold text
Emphasis
Superscript
Subscript
.svg)
Van Gogh’s charming La Mousmé, a masterful reed-pen drawing, had been a gift from Kurt Hirschland to his wife, Harrie, in the 1920s [Fig 10]. In 1935, due to the increasingly difficult situation under the Nazi regime, Kurt and Harrie fled Essen. This drawing went on to hang on the living room wall of their new home at Johannes Vermeerstraat 26, a short walk from the Rijksmuseum [Fig 11].
Harrie stayed in Amsterdam until 1939, when again the threat of war and desire to see daughter Marianne, about to give birth, led her to journey on to the United States. The Van Gogh was entrusted, along with a Sisley and Renoir, to family associates for safekeeping, but when their position was likewise imperiled following the outbreak of war, the artworks were then left with a neighbour. Amidst continued turbulence, La Mousmé found its way to the Stedelijk Museum in 1943.
Harrie, who cherished La Mousmé, was both a conscientious owner — directing its transport from Essen to Amsterdam and its safekeeping with family associates upon her departure — and was the driving force in the restitution claim post-war. Through her perseverance, the drawing was restituted to her in in 1956 and was enjoyed again in the family home in New York for many years.
Her grandson Ed Hirschland summed it up: ‘The restitution was made to [my grandmother] ... who was the instigator of the multiple lawsuits and other activities involved in the recovery of the drawing. As Virgil says in the Aeneid, “Dux femina facti” (a woman was the leader of the deed.)’
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Quote sample text
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
Van Gogh’s charming La Mousmé, a masterful reed-pen drawing, had been a gift from Kurt Hirschland to his wife, Harrie, in the 1920s [Fig 10]. In 1935, due to the increasingly difficult situation under the Nazi regime, Kurt and Harrie fled Essen. This drawing went on to hang on the living room wall of their new home at Johannes Vermeerstraat 26, a short walk from the Rijksmuseum [Fig 11].
Harrie stayed in Amsterdam until 1939, when again the threat of war and desire to see daughter Marianne, about to give birth, led her to journey on to the United States. The Van Gogh was entrusted, along with a Sisley and Renoir, to family associates for safekeeping, but when their position was likewise imperiled following the outbreak of war, the artworks were then left with a neighbour. Amidst continued turbulence, La Mousmé found its way to the Stedelijk Museum in 1943.
Harrie, who cherished La Mousmé, was both a conscientious owner — directing its transport from Essen to Amsterdam and its safekeeping with family associates upon her departure — and was the driving force in the restitution claim post-war. Through her perseverance, the drawing was restituted to her in in 1956 and was enjoyed again in the family home in New York for many years.
Her grandson Ed Hirschland summed it up: ‘The restitution was made to [my grandmother] ... who was the instigator of the multiple lawsuits and other activities involved in the recovery of the drawing. As Virgil says in the Aeneid, “Dux femina facti” (a woman was the leader of the deed.)’
‘Drawing is the root of everything’
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Quote sample text
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
On the Hirschlands’ post-war claim lists and submission to the Stichting Nederlandsche Kunstbezit in 1939, of the dozen other items listed alongside the Van Gogh drawing, was a Menzel Church Interior. [Fig 12] [Fig 13]. Before Harrie and Kurt left Germany, they had their artworks photographed in Essen in 1935. Then they took their collection with them to Amsterdam. Later on, Kurt turned to Switzerland while Harrie remained in Amsterdam. They formally divided their assets for safekeeping.
Like La Mousmé, the Menzel also travelled to Amsterdam, and both works stayed there with Harrie. However, the respite was short-lived, and not long after the German forces occupied The Netherlands in May 1940, Harrie’s remaining possessions were packed up and stored with the De Gruijter & Co. shipping company under the name of her brother-in-law Franz, a US citizen, hoping that this move would protect her belongings before shipment.
Unfortunately this effort was in vain, and Harrie’s possessions were confiscated as ‘enemy assets’ by the Sammelverwaltung feindlicher Haushaltsgeräte or ‘SfH’ (the Collective Administration of Enemy Household Belongings) in the Hague on 14 April 1943. While some of Harrie’s confiscated artworks were sold via auction in Rotterdam, other artworks may have been sold in Germany. A photo from Essen was the key to the Menzel’s rediscovery many decades later. [Fig 14].
The path that this Menzel took remains unknown. Some years later, it reappeared at an auction in Switzerland in 1955 and then entered post-war collections in Germany. Through the continued engagement of the present-day Hirschland family and the diligent work of the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, a branch of New York State’s Department of Financial Services, the Menzel was identified as a missing work from Harrie and Kurt’s collection, and a restitution resolution was facilitated via Christie’s in 2025.
So more than a century of art collecting by the Hirschand family comes to a conclusion for now.
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Quote sample text
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
.svg)
.svg)
.jpeg)
%2C%201924%2C%20lithographie.jpg)
.svg)
