Recovery of four miniatures from the Loewe Collection for the Alte Nationalgalerie
Press release from 10/10/2019
The SPK was recently able to recover four works of art for the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin that had been thought lost. They belong to a collection of 219 miniatures that Berlin city councillor Loewe had bequeathed to the museum in 1897. The four works have now turned up on the art market, while 74 others are still missing.
The works in question are Philipp Arons: Lady with a red headscarf; Carl Karger: Cupid; Georg Engelhardt: Mountain stream in a rocky bed surrounded by fir trees; Johan Mari Ten Kate: Dutch girl descending a staircase.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK, said: "I would like to thank the previous owner for his swift willingness to return the works once he learnt of their history. To this day, numerous works from our collections are listed as lost. Many were destroyed during the Second World War, while others, as in this case, turn up on the art market. We are very pleased about such recoveries because they close gaps in the collection and thus restore connections."
Ralph Gleis, Director of the Alte Nationalgalerie: "We are grateful and delighted that the recovery has enabled us to complete the Loewe Collection once again. The previous research and knowledge of this collection is paying off here."
Albert Friedrich Theodor Loewe, who was responsible for the city's art affairs among other things, also supported contemporary artists privately with his wife Anna Dorothea. Between around 1865 and 1885, the Loewe couple commissioned numerous miniature oil paintings from the most famous painters in Germany and abroad. For the most part, these were artists from Berlin, Munich and Düsseldorf, such as Adolph von Menzel, Leon Pohle, Franz Skarbina, Carl Steffeck, Lawrence Alma Tadema and Anton von Werner. The couple had the works framed in filigree silver hat buckles, some of which were gilded and reworked for this purpose. The pictures, executed in oil on metal, cardboard, wood or ivory, reflect the bourgeois taste of the time. The subjects include scenes from classical mythology, genre motifs, heads of women and children, and depictions of animals and landscapes. In Loewe's flat at Victoriastrasse 13, visitors were able to admire nine panels, each with 23 to 25 miniatures.