Sotheby’s to auction restituted Pissarro’s “Boulevard Montmartre”

By Sarah Gordon, Esq.

On February 5, 2014, Sotheby’s London will auction Camille Pissarro’s Boulevard Montmartre, matinee de printempts (Boulevard Montmartre), formerly in the Silberberg collection. In 1935, German Jewish industrialist and world-renowned art collector, Max Silberberg, was forced to sell this painting at auction in Berlin. In 1999, his daughter-in-law and sole heir, Gerta Silberberg, found the work hanging in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The Israel Museum transferred title to Gerta Silberberg in 2000. In a symbolic gesture, Mrs. Silberberg loaned the painting to the Israel Museum, where it remained on display for the remainder of her life.

According to Sotheby’s, this painting is “one of the most important Impressionist masterworks to come to auction in the last decade.” The upcoming auction raises compelling questions regarding the future of restituting Holocaust era loot. (Sotheby's. Press Office. One of The Most Important Impressionist Paintings to Come to Auction in the Last Decade Will Be Offered in Sotheby's February 2014 Impressionist Modern Art Evening Sale. Sotheby's London, 23 Dec. 2013. Web. 27 Dec. 2013. .; Bazyler, Michael J. Holocaust Justice: The Battle for Restitution in America's Courts. New York: New York UP, 2003. 205.)

In a Press Release dated December 23, 2013, Sotheby’s underscores the artistic and historical significance as well as the compelling provenance of the Boulevard Montmartre. Max Silberberg’s collection of works, including pieces by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cezanne and van Gogh, was well published and exhibited around the world up through 1933. By 1935, Max Silberberg had become victim to the Third Reich’s antiemetic laws. After his company was Aryanised and sold and his home was acquired by the SS, Silberberg was compelled to consign most of his collection at a series of auctions at Paul Graupe’s auction house in Berlin in 1935 and 1936 (including Boulevard Montmartre). While Silberberg’s son, Alfred, fled to England after brief internment at Buchenwald, Max Silberberg and his wife were eventually deported to Theresienstadt and then Auschwitz in 1942, where they both perished. (Sotheby’s Press Office, 23 Dec. 2013; Bazyler, Holocaust Justice, 205.)