Entrée d'un gave

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"Entrée d'un gave" (1876)

Entrée d'un gave ("Source of a mountain stream") is an 1876 oil painting by French artist Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) which is part of the European collection at the Birmingham Museum of Art.

The small (23.25"x17.88") painting on canvas contains a scene of a dark pool of water surrounded by tall, shadowed cliffs. Though it depicts a landscape similar to those found in the Jura mountains near Courbet's native Ornans, it was painted late in his life while he was living on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. He had moved there to avoid paying fines levied against him as punishment for inspiring the dismantling of Napoleon's monumental Vendôme column.

The painting was owned by Parisian businessman Moïse Lévy de Benzion since 1919. In 1941 it was seized by the Einsatztab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) on behalf of occupying Nazi forces. It was first taken to the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, which served as a sorting house for appropriated artwork. From there it was brought to Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany at the direction of Hermann Göring for his personal collection. He traded it, with a group of other pieces, to Galerie Fischer in Lucerne, Switzerland. The gallery sold it to Willi Raeber of Basel, who in turn sold it to Arthur Stoll in 1945.

The painting was among the misappropriated artworks recovered by the Allied Forces' Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section (MFAA). Lévy de Benzion had died in 1943, so the painting was returned to Paule-Juliette Lévy de Benzion on December 15, 1948. She sold it to Boston collector Stephen Hahn in 1961.

The work was acquired from Hahn by the museum in 1999.

References

  • Nancy H. Yeide. Beyond the Dreams of Avarice: The Hermann Goering Collection
  • Nicholas, Lynn H. (2009) The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. New York: Random House ISBN 0307739724
  • Huebner, Michael (February 7, 2014) "Monuments Man: Birmingham Museum of Art's founding director Richard Howard helped restitute Nazi-plundered art; Clooney film opens today." The Birmingham News

External links