186 Artworks Looted From Rothschilds Given to Boston Museum of Fine Arts
“Portrait of Emma Hart,” by the English artist George Romney, was among the prized works donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston by a member of the famed Rothschild family. Image by Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts
Millions of dollars worth of prized art and objects once stolen by the Nazis and later forcibly relinquished to the Austrian government was donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The donation of 186 objects from the original collection of Alphonse and Clarice de Rothschild of Vienna of the famed Jewish banking dynasty was made by Bettina Burr, a granddaughter of the baron and baroness. Many of the works were seized in 1938 following the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, according to the museum.
As heiress to the collection, Burr’s mother, Bettina Looram, spent decades pursuing the art from the Austrian Ministry of Culture, which in 1999 reversed its earlier decisions, returning the 250 pieces of art to the family. Many of the works were sold at auction, but some objects of personal significance were kept back, many of which have now been given to the museum.
The gift includes European decorative arts, furniture, prints, drawings, paintings, personal objects and jewelry, including an emerald and diamond Art Deco brooch that Alphonse Rothschild gave to his wife as a 25th wedding anniversary gift. Among the paintings is “Portrait of Emma Hart,” later Lady Hamilton, by the English artist George Romney.
“Through my mother’s tenacity and courage, 60 years after the 1938 Anschluss, these works were returned to my family,” Burr, a museum trustee, said in a statement. “Now, as my mother would have wished, I am delighted that this collection will stay at the MFA for as long as I can envision.”
Malcolm Roger, the museum’s director, called the gift a transformation of the museum’s collection.
“This gift allows us to tell, in a very moving way, one of the saddest stories of the Second World War, and the story of Bettina’s mother and her long pilgrimage to set history right,” he said.
An exhibit of some of the collection goes on view from March 1 to June 21, and will include material that addresses how curators traced the provenance of the art.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
