Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy

Paul Robert Ernst von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (born 14 November 1875 in Berlin; died 10 May 1935) was a German Jewish banker and art collector. The persecution of his family under the Nazis has resulted in numerous lawsuits for restitution.

Paul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy; oil painting by Max Liebermann, 1909
Grave of Paul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy in Börnicke

Life

Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was the eldest son of the banker Ernst von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1846–1909) and Marie, née Warschauer (1855–1906), a granddaughter of Alexander Mendelssohn. After a few months at Balliol College in Oxford, studying law in Bonn and Berlin, and joining the Society of Friends in 1901, he became a partner in the family bank Mendelssohn & Co. in early 1902. A few months later, he married Charlotte Reichenheim. The couple remained childless. After the divorce, he married Elsa Lucy Emmy Lolo von Lavergne-Péguilhen (born 8 January 1899 in Strasbourg; died 11 March 1986).

Art collection

Together with his first wife, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy built a collection of the finest quality paintings by Pablo Picasso (Boy with Horse and Le Moulin de La Galette)[1] in the Stadtpalais Alsenstrasse 3 / 3a (architect: Bruno Paul) and in Schloss Börnicke (rebuilt by the same architect),[2] Vincent van Gogh ("Sunflowers", "Mutter Roulin im Profil, mit ihren Bab"y, "St. Paul's Krankenhaus", "Junges Mädschen mit Kornblume" and "Trunk of an old yellow tree"[3]). They also owned artworks by Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Georges Braque[4] as well as by Henri Rousseau, Dégas, Cézanne, Derain, and Toulouse-Lautrec.[3]

Nazi persecution

When the Nazis rose to power in 1933, von Mendelssohn-Bartholdly was persecuted because of his Jewish origin.[5] Nazi laws designed to ostracize, bankrupt and plunder the Jews were applied to the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy family.

Much controversy surrounds the circumstances under which Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and his heirs relinquished the artworks in his collection, under the Third Reich's racial laws, which forced family members into exile and the destruction via Aryanisation of their bank Mendelssohn & Co.

A series of lawsuits demanding the restitution of the Mendelssohn-Bartholdy artworks was initiated in 2008 by the heirs of Mendelssohn, with Julius H. Schoeps as their spokesman.[6][7] The artworks claimed included:

There was also a question concerning the Picasso's Boy with a Pipe which Mendelssohn-Bartoldy's widow had sold to Walter Feilchenfeldt, Zürich, who sold it to Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney in 1950.[17]

Literature
  • Hans-Günther Klein: Miszellen zu Ernst und Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. In: Mendelssohn-Studien. Band 11, 1999, S. 207–215.
  • Thomas Lackmann: Das Glück der Mendelssohns – Geschichte einer deutschen Familie. Aufbau, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-351-02600-5.
  • Julius H. Schoeps: Enteignet durch die Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Der Fall Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Eine Dokumentation. Philo, Bodenheim 1997 (Publikation des Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien; Universität Potsdam) ISBN 3825700453, ISBN 9783825700454.
  • Homepage zur Gesellschaft der Freunde

References
  1. "The Nazis, the Jewish banker, and the battle for two priceless". The Independent. 2011-10-23. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  2. Harrod, William Owen. "Bruno Paul - The Life and Work of a Pragmatic Modernist". yumpu.com. Edition Axel Menges. p. 33. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  3. GRODZINSKI, VERONIKA (2005). "FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM AND GERMAN JEWS The Making of MODERNIST ART COLLECTORS AND ART COLLECTIONS IN IMPERIAL GERMANY 1896-1914" (PDF).
  4. "Picasso portrait returned by National Gallery to heirs of Jewish banker persecuted by Nazis". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2020-04-02. Retrieved 2021-04-02. Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was a relative of the composer Felix Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn and Co., the bank his family established in 1795, was one of Germany's five largest privately owned banks. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's collection also included works by Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Georges Braque.
  5. "Picasso portrait returned by National Gallery to heirs of Jewish banker - The Washington Post". The Washington Post. 2020-04-02. Archived from the original on 2020-04-02. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  6. Hickley, Catherine (2020-03-31). "National Gallery of Art Returns Picasso Work to Settle Claim". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  7. "Picasso portrait returned by National Gallery to heirs of Jewish banker persecuted by Nazis". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2020-04-02. Retrieved 2021-04-02. The heirs of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy have previously reached settlements with the current owners of three other Picassos they claim Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was forced to sell at the same time as "Head of a Woman." They include "Boy Leading a Horse," now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art; "Le Moulin de la Galette," now in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and "Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto" (also known as "The Absinthe Drinker"). The latter was sold at a Christie's auction in London for $51.8 million, with commission, to a private collector by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation after the foundation had reached a settlement with the heirs.
  8. "MoMA Settles Picasso Restitution Case". Art Market Monitor. 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  9. Kreder, Jennifer. "Fighting Corruption of the Historical Record: Nazi-Looted Art Litigation" (PDF). Another declaratory judgment action, filed by the MoMA and the Guggenheim, sought to shut down the claims of Julius Schoeps, heir to Paul Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, for paintings that passed throughThannhauser's hands.2 77 The museums alleged that it is simply implausible and contrary to common sense to suggest that any Jewish art dealer would take advantage of a fellow Jew.278
  10. "Guggenheim Settles Litigation and Shares Key Findings". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  11. Kearney, Christine (2009-02-02). "NY museums settle in claim of Nazi-looted Picassos". Reuters. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  12. "Lloyd Webber's Picasso to be sold after Nazi row settled - Yahoo! News". 2010-03-25. Archived from the original on 2010-03-25. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  13. "The National Gallery Restituted a Picasso to a Jewish Banker's Heirs Last Week. Gagosian Is Already Offering It for $10 Million". Artnet News. 2020-04-06. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  14. Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Nazi-looted art: Why Germany hasn't dealt with it | DW | 24.11.2014". DW.COM. Retrieved 2021-04-02.
  15. SPIEGEL, Michael Sontheimer, DER (18 October 2011). "Art Restitution and Picasso: One Jewish Family's Battle with a Munich Museum". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 2021-04-02. Schoeps, a descendant of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, has joined 29 other heirs of the Berlin banker Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in requesting the return of the Picasso painting "Madame Soler" from the Bavarian State Painting Collections.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. Hickley, Catherine (2021-06-08). "Was This Picasso Lost Because of the Nazis? Heirs and Bavaria Disagree". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-02-14.
  17. "Pablo Picasso GARCON A LA PIPE".
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