Rectangular box
about 1785
Medium/TechniqueGold-mounted bloodstone, diamonds
DimensionsL. 3 in.
Credit LineGift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild
Accession number2013.1740
On View
Not on viewClassificationsBoxes
Collections
NOTES:
[1] With the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the possessions of Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild were seized and expropriated almost immediately by Nazi forces. This box appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939, probably as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 1293: "Dose, viereckig, Achat, dunkelblaugrau, heliotrop mit roten Einsprengungen, Goldfassung, kleines Zierstück mit Muschel in Brillanten." Katalog beschlagnahmter Sammlungen, inbesondere der Rothschild-Sammlungen in Wien, Verlags-Nr. 4938, Staatsdruckerei Wien, 1939, Privatarchiv, reproduced in Sophie Lillie, "Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens" (Vienna, 2003), p. 1046.
[2] This box was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1941. Card no. AR 1293, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online. It was probably among the many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis, which were moved to the abandoned salt mines of Alt Aussee in Austria, to be kept safe from wartime bombing. Allied troops recovered the looted artwork at the end of World War II, and established collecting points where the art could be identified for restitution to its rightful owners. In 1947 Clarice de Rothschild visited the salt mines at Alt Aussee, where she was able to identify the crates of works of art from her family’s collection, facilitating its return shortly thereafter.
about 1750-60
mid-19th century
18th century
18th century
about 1770
mid-18th century
about 1765
18th century