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Veilleuse

late 18th century

Medium/TechniqueGilt bronze, white marble, Japanese lacquer

DimensionsOverall: 61 × 30.5 × 20.3 cm (24 × 12 × 8 in.)

Credit LineGift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild

Accession number2019.645

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsMetalwork

Collections

Europe

ProvenanceBy 1938, Alphonse de Rothschild (b. 1878 – d. 1942) and Clarice de Rothschild (b. 1894 – d. 1967), Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild by Nazi forces (no. AR 676) [see note 1]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; 1941, removed to the monastery of Kremsmünster and subsequently to Alt Aussee; recovered by Allied forces and, about 1947, 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 veilleuse appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 676: "Zweiflammiger Standleuchter, auf Marmorsockel sitzender Putto mit Früchtenkorb, davor ein Flügelputto mit Fackel und Blume und verschleierter Putto, Lichtschirm aus Goldlack." 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. 1026.

[2] Many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis 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.