The Daumier Register Digital Work Catalogue
DR Number 7196
SEARCH DETAILS FOR THIS PAINTING
Original or not?  Size Details  Exhibition Details  Provenance Details  Date of origin 
Reference  Signature Details  Similarities  Background Details 

Background Details
ABOUT THIS PAINTING

We have received confirmation from the National Museum of Belgrade that they have owned this painting since 1949, where it still is today. Rumors about the theft of the picture are thus unfounded. Since 1940 it had been published and exhibited several times, last in 2007 in Como.

According to Maison and based on a photograph supplied by Mrs. M Feilchenfeldt in Zurich, Cassirer may have received the painting from L. Venturi. It remains unclear however, whether Cassirer had physically owned the painting or whether he was acting on commission basis.

Provost on p. 204 mentions that a similar painting had belonged to the Gurlitt Gallery in Munich or Berlin by 1970. He compares it to this painting (DR7196) and gave it the number KEM I 7196 bis. He refers to Maison’s article “Some additions to Daumier’s oeuvre” in the Burlington Magazine nr. 810, Dec. 1970, p. 623/624. Since we did not have the opportunity to see this interesting painting in person, little can be said about its state of preservation or authenticity. Style as well as provenance should however give a positive indication about its originality.

About the SHLOMOVIC collection:
“When Vollard died a lot of paintings from his collection in the hands of Eric Shlomovicha, student Yugoslav nationality, arrived in Paris in 1934 Part of these pictures (about 400), he moved to Zagreb where they were exhibited in 1940 at the Museum Fine Arts, and the other part (190 pictures) stored in a safe, which he took on the name of his father in the bank Societe Generale.

Sam Slomovich died during the Second World War. At the end of the war, his mother decided to move the pictures to Belgrade, but the train, in which they were transported, was bombed. How much art work was lost is impossible to say; in the postwar period paintings from this collection appear in different places in Europe. The surviving paintings were confiscated after the war by the new communist government, which stated that Shlomovich had no heirs, and that the collection belonged to Yugoslavia.

In 1946, Société Generale has decided to open the safe, since Shlomovich stopped long ago paying the fees. Until 1977 the paintings were stored in the bank in Nantes.

In 1977 the bank made an inventory of this collection of paintings and intended to sell them at public auction. Vollard's heirs, on the one hand, and Shlomovich, on the other hand, knew about these pictures through the information disseminated by Société Generale, and told the bank of their rights to the pictures. On the first court decision the paintings were divided between the heirs of Vollard and the heirs of Shlomovich. However, the heirs of Shlomovich argued that Vollard gave Shlomovich all these pictures, appealed the decision on the grounds that the heirs of Vollard knew about the existence of these pictures at least since 1940 when they were exhibited in the Museum of Belgrade, but he never attempted to obtain them, and consequently, their right to inheritance shall be overwritten. For their part, the heirs of Vollard filed a lawsuit, claiming that the pictures were handed to Vollard by Shlomovich on consignment. In addition, both parties filed claims against Société Generale.

The Court of Cassation rejected the claims of both sides and decided to return to the court of first instance that the paintings will be divided among the heirs of Vollard and Shlomovich, who together must reimburse the bank of its costs (a very small amount). As a result, all these heirs have agreed among themselves.”

Reference: www.artinvestment.ru April 2008

WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN DAUMIER'S WORK. Numerous art historians have been wondering why in many cases Daumier depicted the women and children in his drawings and lithographs in a rather unsightly fashion. Especially in the series “Les Baigneuses” the women’s figures shown in swimming gear are presented in a strikingly unbecoming way.
………..more about WOMEN AND CHILDREN in Daumier’s work.