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Snuffbox
French (Paris)
about 1740
Medium/Technique
Gold, mother-of-pearl
Dimensions
Width: 8.3 cm (3 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild
Accession Number2015.99
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsBoxes
DescriptionA gold-mounted and mother-of-pearl snuffbox, with a zig-zag pattern of stripes alternating with plain and applied double rows of florets.
Marks
Maker's mark HA with the decharge mark of Louis Robin (working 1738-44).
Provenance1938, 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 (nos. AR 1556) [see note 1]; taken to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and stored at the Central Depot, Neue Burg, Vienna; August 28, 1941, given over to the Federal Monuments Office, Vienna and later removed to the monastery of Kremsmünster and subsequently to Alt Aussee; 1945, recovered by Allied forces; 1947, donated under coersion by Clarice de Rothschild to the Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna (MAK accession no. 30.259, Go 1874) [see note 2]; 1999, restituted to Clarice de Rothschild's daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild (b. 1924 - d. 2012) [see note 3]; by descent to her heirs; 2015, gift of the heirs of Bettina Looram de Rothschild to the MFA. (Accession Date: February 25, 2015)
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 snuffbox appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as nos. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) AR 1556: "Gold und Perlmutterdose, rechteckig, Dekor, Zickzackstreifen." 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. 1053.
[2] This item was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1941. Card no. AR 1156, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online. It was probably among the many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis, which 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. However, Austrian authorities required her to transfer certain works of art to the state in exchange for permission to export the remainder of the collection. The location of the item in 1947 is noted as the Kunstgewerbemuseum Wien on the Central Depot card.
[3] In 1999, upon the recommendation of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research, the works of art that had been "donated" by Clarice de Rothschild in 1947 were released by the Austrian state museums and returned to her daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild.
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 snuffbox appears in a Nazi-generated inventory of 1939 as nos. AR (Alphonse Rothschild) AR 1556: "Gold und Perlmutterdose, rechteckig, Dekor, Zickzackstreifen." 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. 1053.
[2] This item was catalogued at the Central Depot, and given over to the Federal Monuments Office in 1941. Card no. AR 1156, Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna, available on the website of the Zentral Depot Karteien online. It was probably among the many works of art stored elsewhere by the Nazis, which 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. However, Austrian authorities required her to transfer certain works of art to the state in exchange for permission to export the remainder of the collection. The location of the item in 1947 is noted as the Kunstgewerbemuseum Wien on the Central Depot card.
[3] In 1999, upon the recommendation of the Austrian Commission for Provenance Research, the works of art that had been "donated" by Clarice de Rothschild in 1947 were released by the Austrian state museums and returned to her daughter, Bettina Looram de Rothschild.