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Snuff box
Snuff box

Snuff box

Norbert Heylbroeck (Belgian, 1700–1762)
about 1750-60
Medium/TechniqueGold, mother of pearl
DimensionsLength: 7.3 cm (2 7/8 in.)
Credit LineGift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild
Accession number2013.1764
On View
On view
ClassificationsBoxes
Collections
InscriptionsBottom panel engraved: "N. Heylbrouck Fecit. Graveur de sa Majeste de la Monneije a Bruges"ProvenanceBy 1903, Nathaniel von Rothschild (b. 1836 - d. 1905), Vienna [see note 1]; by descent to his nephew, Alphonse de Rothschild (b. 1878 – d. 1942) and his wife, Clarice de Rothschild (b. 1894 – d. 1967), Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild by Nazi forces (no. AR 1271) [see note 2]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; August 28, 1941, given over to the Federal Monuments Office, Vienna and later removed to the monastery of Kremsmünster and subsequently to Alt Aussee; 1945, recovered by Allied forces; 1947, returned to Clarice de Rothschild, New York [see note 3]; by descent to her daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild (b. 1924 - d. 2012); about 1990/1992, given by Bettina Looram de Rothschild to members of her family; 2013, gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 18, 2013)

NOTES:
[1] Nathaniel von Rothschild, Notizen über einige meiner Kunstgegenstände (Vienna, 1903), p. 125, cat. no. 313; and Inventar über die in den Nathaniel Freiherr von Rothschild'schen Nachlass gehörigen, in dem Palais in Wien, IV. Bezirk, Theresianumgasse Nr. 14 befindlichen Kunstgegen stände und Einrichtungsstücke (Vienna, 1906), pp. 247-248, no. 1246.

[2] 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 snuff box appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 1271: "Perlmutterdose mit geschwärzter Gravierung, mythologische und allegorische Darstellungen, signiert Heylbrouk." 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. 1045.

[3] This box was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1941. Card no. AR 1271, 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.