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Bureau plat

(French, born in 1694, master 1742, died in 1763)
Medium/TechniqueTulipwood, gilt-bronze
DimensionsH. 31 1/2 in.; W. 58 in.; D. 30 3/4 in.
Credit LineGift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild
Accession number2019.638
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsFurniture
Collections
ProvenanceBy 1938, Alphonse de Rothschild (b. 1878 – d. 1942) and Clarice de Rothschild (b. 1894 – d. 1967), Schloss Schillersdorf (Silherovice, present-day Czech Republic) and Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild by Nazi forces (no. AR 166) [see note 1]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; selected for the Kunstgewerbemuseum, Vienna; about 1949/1950, returned to Clarice de Rothschild, New York [see note 2]; 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; 2019, gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 19, 2019)

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 bureau plat appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 166: "Ein Bureauplat, Königsholz, lederbezogen, drei Laden mit Bronzebeschlägen, 17. Jhdt." 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. 1010.

[2] The bureau plat was catalogued at the Central Depot and moved subsequently to the Kunstgewerbemuseum (now the Museum für angewandte Kunst), Vienna, where it remained until at least 1949 before being returned to Clarice de Rothschild. Card no. AR 166, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online.