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Commode

Jacques Dautriche (active 1743–1778, master in 1765, died 1778)

about 1770

Medium/TechniqueTulipwood, amaranth, gilt bronze, marble top

DimensionsH. 35 in.; W. 37 in.; D. 18 in.

Credit LineGift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild

Accession number2019.650

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsFurniture

Collections

Europe

InscriptionsThe reverse with Schloss Schillersdorf inventory label no. 106.ProvenanceCommander Ogilvy, Fife, Scotland. By 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 565) [see note 1]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; 1941, selected for the Führermuseum, Linz, removed to the monastery of Kremsmünster (Kremsmünster Kunstgewerbe no. 913) and subsequently taken to Alt Aussee [see note 2]; recovered by Allied forces; October 16, 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; 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 commode appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as no. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) 565: "Kommode, zwei grosse und zwei kleine Schubladen, reich intarsiert, hauptsächlich Rosenholz, würfelartiges Muster, Bronzebeschläge, fleckige Marmorplatte." 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. 1021.

[2] The Führermuseum, the art museum Adolf Hitler planned to build in Linz, Austria, was given the right of first refusal over the confiscated Rothschild collection, and selected this commode for inclusion on May 28, 1941. Card no. AR 565, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online.

[3] 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. The date of return is noted on the Central Depot card (as above, n. 2).