Wine jug

Anno Knutgen (active about 1567–1581)

about 1580

Object PlaceGermany

Medium/TechniqueSalt-glaze stoneware with tin mount

DimensionsHeight 28.58 cm (11 1/4 in.)

Credit LineGift of R. Thornton Wilson in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson

Accession number60.179

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsCeramics

Collections

Europe

InscriptionsGummed paper label on underside of base: "O. Bondy"ProvenanceOscar Bondy (b. 1870 - d. 1944) and Elisabeth Bondy, Vienna; 1938, confiscated from Oscar and Elisabeth Bondy by Nazi forces (probably no. OB 93) [see note 1]; stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna, and probably removed to Alt Aussee [see note 2]; 1945, recovered by Allied forces and subsequently returned to Elisabeth Bondy, New York; probably sold by Mrs. Bondy to Blumka Gallery, New York [see note 3]; February 20, 1960, sold by Blumka to R. Thornton Wilson (b. 1886 - d. 1977), New York; gift of R. Thornton Wilson to the MFA [see note 3]. (Accession Date: March 10, 1960)

NOTES:
[1] With the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany in March, 1938, the possessions of Oscar and Elisabeth Bondy were seized and expropriated almost immediately by Nazi forces. This wine jug is listed in a Nazi-generated inventory of the collection (July 4, 1938; Vienna, BDA-Archiv, Restitutions-Materialen, K 8/1), probably as no. 93 ("Bauchiger Steinzeugkrug mit Frauen und Wappen, dat. 1574").

[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 stafe from wartime bombing.

[3] Mr. Bondy and his wife left Europe and emigrated to the United States, where he passed away in 1944. In the years following World War II, much of his collection was restituted to his widow and subsequently sold on the New York art market, particularly through Blumka Gallery. For further on Oscar Bondy, see Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstammlungen Wiens (Vienna, 2003), pp. 216-245.