Provenance

J.R. Thomas, London;[1] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 19 November 1920, no. 155, as The Butcher).[2] Dr. Gustav Arens [1867-1936], Vienna; by inheritance to his daughter, Lise Arens Haas [1903-2011, Mrs. Felix Haas], Vienna and Berkeley, California;[3] by inheritance to her daughter, Eva L. Meigher, Chevy Chase, Maryland; gift 2018 to NGA.
[1] Lynda McLeod, Associate Director and Librarian of Christie's Archive, London, kindly supplied the name of the consignor of the painting to the 1920 sale, and she writes that his address in Christie's records is "King Street," which "may suggest that he was a well-known local dealer." See her e-mail of 3 October 2018, in NGA curatorial files.
[2] The painting was sold for £28.8 to Smith [?]. In Debra Miller’s catalogue raisonné of Victors’ oeuvre, the work is listed as in the Cels collection. However, while the auction catalogue begins with the Cels’ collection, lots starting with no. 102, are “The Property of a Gentleman.” See Debra Miller, "Jan Victors (1619-76)," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware, Newark, 1985: 314, no. 97, repro. 448.
[3] This painting, along with other works from the Haas collection, was confiscated by the German Nazi authorities in 1938 from the Haas home in Vienna and deposited in the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen in that city. The painting was recovered after the war and restituted to the family in 1948. See U.S. National Archives, RG 260, Records of the Munich Central Collecting Point/Administrative Records/Restitution Claim Records/Austrian Claims/Alphabetical, Haas-Honig; copies in NGA curatorial files. Copies of additional documents relating to the confiscation and restitution of the Haas collection were kindly supplied by Anneliese Schallmeiner of the Kommission für Provenienzforschung beim BKA, Vienna, and are in NGA curatorial files (see her e-mail of 6 June 2019), as is a personal note about the painting's history from Mrs. Eva Meigher, 9 March 2018.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1936

1985

2003

Inscriptions

lower left on the barrel: Jan.Victors f. 1653

Wikidata ID

Q58690805