'This collection, of which there were few equivalents, was preserved by the family and remained intact until the German occupation. The Germans, who particularly coveted the Schloss collection, had decided to seize it and they succeeded, not without difficulty, after adventures that would merit a special chapter.'
The Adolphe Schloss collection of Flemish and Dutch paintings once displayed at his home at 38 Avenue Henri Martin in Paris is considered one of the last great art collections of early 20th-century France [Fig. 1, 2]. So renowned was the collection that the Nazis sought to acquire it for themselves from the very start of the Occupation. However, thanks to the courageous efforts of the Schloss family, the collection eluded the Vichy and Nazi authorities for almost four years.
Born to a Jewish family in Bavaria, Schloss relocated to Paris in the 1870s where he married Mathilde Lucie Haas (1858–1938) [Fig. 3, 4]. Schloss went on to establish ‘Adolphe Schloss Fils & Cie, commissionnaires exportateurs’ and rose to prominence as a goods and commodities broker for French and North American department stores. His entrepreneurial reputation would also see him serve as an advisor to the French government on foreign trade.
Adolphe and Mathilde had six children: Marguerite (1879–1959), Lucien (1881–1962), Henri (1882–1964), Juliette (later Weil, 1885–1976), Jacques (1891–1915) and Raymond (1897–1984). Sons Lucien, Henri and Raymond would join their father at the family business, a brokerage firm. Juliette, who later married renowned hematologist Dr. Prosper-Émile (or Paul Emile) Weil, would become a patron of the arts in her own right [Fig. 9].
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HÔTEL PARTICULIER D' ADOLPHE SCHLOSS
Schloss, who is believed to have purchased his first artwork in 1889, amassed one of the most significant private collections of Old Master paintings in France. While he relied on European art dealers to acquire artworks of great quality, chief among them Franz Kleinberger (1858–1937) and Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925), he also curated the collection to reflect his own taste.
The collection, which consisted predominantly of Dutch and Flemish paintings as well as works by Italian and French artists, was displayed throughout the Schloss residence [Fig. 5-8]. Still-lifes with fruit and vegetables adorned the dining room while Italian artworks decorated the living room.
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HÔTEL PARTICULIER D' ADOLPHE SCHLOSS
Schloss, who is believed to have purchased his first artwork in 1889, amassed one of the most significant private collections of Old Master paintings in France. While he relied on European art dealers to acquire artworks of great quality, chief among them Franz Kleinberger (1858–1937) and Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925), he also curated the collection to reflect his own taste.
The collection, which consisted predominantly of Dutch and Flemish paintings as well as works by Italian and French artists, was displayed throughout the Schloss residence [Fig. 5-8]. Still-lifes with fruit and vegetables adorned the dining room while Italian artworks decorated the living room.
Mr. Adolphe Schloss is not one to confine himself exclusively to business conversations; when he pulls himself together in private life, he is the delicate, erudite conversationalist whose supple mind knows how to appreciate the Arts and Letters. His home … is decorated with taste and eclecticism.
(Stéphane Carrère, 'Express-Portrait: Adolphe Schloss', La Justice, 24 October 1908, p. 1)
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‘The importance of these three hundred paintings by 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masters, collected throughout the life of the late Adolphe Schloss, cannot be overstated.’
When Adolphe Schloss died in 1910, his art collection passed to his widow, who left it unchanged. The collection was then jointly inherited by their children in 1938. In anticipation of the arrival of Nazi troops, Lucien, Juliette and her husband Prosper-Émile Weil made arrangements for the artworks to be deposited in the vaults of the Banque Jordaan’s Château de Chambon near Limoges [Fig. 10]. The collection left Paris in 10 crates on 19 August 1939. The family would follow soon after. The Vichy and Nazi authorities did not learn of the collection’s removal from Paris, however, until July 1940, when their search of the Schloss home on Avenue Henri Martin revealed only empty frames.
Despite both French and German agents searching for the collection’s hiding place, it remained hidden for years at the Château de Chambon. It was not until the arrest in 1943 of Henri and his wife Louise, at a bus stop in Nice — and the subsequent arrest, a day later, of Lucien at his home in Lamastre — that the collection’s location was discovered. Out on a walk, Raymond and brother-in-law Prosper-Émile Weil narrowly escaped arrest when officers descended on the home they shared with Lucien.
Once located, the Schloss collection was transported back to Paris where complex and protracted negotiations between the Vichy and German governments determined its dispersal.
'Perhaps the best example of acquisition for Linz by forced sale is provided by the Schloss affair.'
The Schloss collection would be broken into three groups: The Louvre selected 49 paintings for which it paid 18,750,000 French francs; 260 paintings were selected for Hitler’s planned museum at Linz for 50 million French francs; and 22 paintings were sold (or given) to a M. Buittenweg. Buittenweg’s identity has never been confirmed, however, it is suspected that the true buyer was Jean-François Lefranc, the collaborationist art dealer appointed to oversee the liquidation of the collection.
Those paintings selected for Hitler’s planned museum at Linz were removed to the Jeu de Paume, and from there they were transferred to Munich where many were stored at the ‘Führerbau’, Hitler’s headquarters. In 1945, in the days between the fall of the Third Reich and the arrival of Allied troops, the building was ransacked and its contents looted. The artworks from the Schloss collection disappeared [Fig. 11].
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In the immediate post-war period, the 49 Schloss paintings which had been acquired by the Louvre were returned to the heirs, as were some paintings recovered after the 'Führerbau' theft in Munich. The restituted artworks were then sold by the family in a series of 3 auctions from 1949 to 1954 [Fig. 12-14].
The restitution of the historic collection was overseen by the children of Adolphe and Mathilde Schloss, all of whom survived the war. Lucien escaped from captivity; Henri, whose wife had been released soon after their arrest, would be released himself following more than a monthlong imprisonment.
Of the paintings stored at the 'Führerbau', more than 150 are still missing.
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