"Rembrandt Laughing" was a genuine self-portrait

[artemirra]

Laughing Rembrandt.

[LCR]

Сообщение от Meister

decided to establish a business? ))))))))

As for a fake Rembrandt sold officer Hammer GMII, nothing I can say - for the first time I heard this amazing story.
It is hoped that Hammer had left his children a legacy of a great number of Rembrandt, which he wrote this great restorer, and that children Hammer live in prosperity, by selling them quietly.
.
As for the sale of a completely genuine masterpieces from the Russian museum collections, including Rembrandt, Professor P, Williams in his book "Russian Art and American Money" describes how this happened:
 
"Start selling paintings of the Hermitage, it was decided by the Politburo in 1928. For Stalin, the masterpieces of art were simply objects of bourgeois and religious art that took the value as a potential product for exchange. Organization sell, he entrusted the People's Commissar of Foreign Trade E, Mikoyan, who in November of that year, organized a public auction in Berlin and Leipzig. The list of works of art on display for sale in the gallery R. molding in Berlin on Nov. 6, 1928 were: 110 samples of furniture, 102 object of gilded bronze, 10 tapestries, 40 gift boxes, 47 items of the enamel, 36 sculptures (including works Houdon) and 97 paintings (including works by Boucher, Jordaens, Canaletto, Rembrandt, Rubens, Tintoretto, Teniers, and others).

June 5, 1929 at an auction in the same gallery has sold 109 paintings. It was mostly the work of Dutch and Flemish artists such as Van Goyen, Metsu, Netsher, Rembrandt, Teniers ... Among the works sold were also Boucher, Burns, Guardi, Greuze, Canaletto, Cranach and others, where it was sold about a hundred samples of furniture and 129 items from china and tapestries, sculptures, etc.

In 1930-1931. at auction in Germany, the Soviet government sold many prints. May 8, 1930 was sold about two thousand engravings. Among them - about a hundred works by Durer and forty works by Rembrandt. May 9, 1930 sold another two hundred engravings, including many works by Goya. November 13, 1930 were sold almost two hundred engravings by Rembrandt (one of which over 30 thousand marks) and more than 50 engravings by Durer - the main auction lots. A total catalog includes 1,426 names. April 20, 1931 sold another thousand engravings, including lists of Durer and Rembrandt.

May 4, 1932, through the same intermediary Leipzig were auctioned paintings by old masters (Cranach, Dürer, Boucher, Greuze, Altdorfer, etc.

Since profits from public auctions in Germany was smaller than expected, Mikoyan decided to sell the masterpieces of the Hermitage individuals. The first buyer was headed at the time the oil company "Iraq Petroleum Gulbenkian. In July 1929 he signed a contract with "antiques", and by May 1930 has acquired seven paintings (three masterpieces by Rembrandt, paintings by Rubens, Watteau, and Terborch Lancret) and the sculpture of Houdon's "Diana» (Descargues P. The Hermitage Museum . New York, 1961). These works are now the ornament and pride K. Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon and located in its permanent exhibition.

But the most significant transaction was carried out with the millionaire E. Mellon.
On intent Mikoyan Andrew Mellon, an American billionaire who learned from his dealer Roland Nodlera, through whom he used to buy paintings for their collections.

In April 1930, E, Mellon bought three paintings from the Hermitage for 559 thousand to $ 190:
- "Polish nobleman" and "Girl with a broom" - Rembrandt
- "Portrait of a young man" - F. Hals.

In May 1930 for 223 thousand 563 dollars
  - "Portrait of Isabella Brandt Peter Paul Rubens.

In June of 1930. over 502 thousand 899 dollars
  - "Annunciation" Van Eyck.

In June - November 1930. over 1 million 84 thousand 953 dollars
  - "Portrait of a Turk" and "Woman with a Flower" by Rembrandt,
- "Portrait of Lord Philip Wharton", "Portrait of flamandki", "Portrait of Suzanne Furman and her daughter" A. Van - Dyck.

In January 1931, were bought by E. Mellon:
- "St. George" Rafelya over 745 thousand 500 dollars
- "Portrait of Pope Innocent X" by Velazquez for 223 thousand 562 dollars
- "The Adoration of the Magi" S. Botticelli for 838 thousand 350 dollars
- "Potiphar's wife accuses Joseph." Rembrandt of 167 thousand 543 dollars

In March of 1931. was sold to E. Mellon:
- "Finding of Moses" Veronese over 402 thousand 333 dollars
- "Portrait of William Nossal" A. Van - Dyck
- "Portrait of an officer" F. Hals
- "House of Cards" Jean Chardin

In April of 1931. were sold to E. Mellon
- "Alba Madonna" by Raphael for 1 million 710 thousand 558 dollars
- "Venus szerkalom" V. Titian
- "The Crucifixion" P. Perugino over 194 thousand 602 dollars.

Total for his collection E. Mellon acquired by the Hermitage 21 paintings by old masters, paying for all 6 миллионов 654 тысячи $ 53. Only one painting by Titian in the prevailing price was worth 10-15 times more expensive than all the money that he paid Mellon for 21 now. In 1941, in Washington, DC was opened National Gallery of Art, the first for which the gift was a collection of financial magnate Andrew Mellon, the paintings by Rembrandt, Raphael, Velasquez, Titian, Botticelli, Rubens, Hals, Van Dyck, Veronese, Chardin, bought them the Hermitage, and were up until now the basis of the National Gallery in Washington. "

F. Mastinskaya tells of another Russian Art Museum, which is located in Los Angeles.
"Two weeks before his death, a well-known American tycoon Armand Hammer has opened a grand museum and cultural center of its name. Armand Hammer was pathologically vain, even bought them for 5.6 million dollars manuscript of Leonardo da Vinci, he renamed the Codex Hammer. "

In the 20's, while in the Soviet Union during NEPAL, he received a concession from the Soviet authorities into two companies - asbestos mines in the Urals and the pencil factory in Moscow, who in a short time made a lucrative, thriving. Hammer, along with a large family lived in Moscow on 9 years old, represented the interests of 30 American companies, and therefore withdrew the representations of Lawn-Samotechnaya Street house of 35 rooms. Hammer begins to furnish this empty house, in his spare time passes flea markets, commission shops in search of antiques, which in the 20 years could be bought for a pittance. Here are some examples of his amazing discoveries. For a few rubles, he bought a painted porcelain dish from the king the service in 1825, produced for the Emperor Nicholas 1. After a few days in a Moscow restaurant, private Hammer saw all this service as a whole, consisting of 1000 subjects. Restaurant owner complained that a shortage of simple dishes, and Hummer in exchange for a few sets of inexpensive earthenware received service from the House of Romanov. /.../
Realizing that he can for next to nothing to buy large quantities of these treasures, Hammer has attracted experts on ancient icons, antique dealers, connoisseurs and collectors of art. His house was converted into a museum of relics, which are still a few years ago belonged to the Romanov dynasty: the royal furniture, works of Faberge, Rembrandt, Corot landscapes, jewelry boxes, snuff boxes, notebooks, richly decorated with precious stones, gold and enamel, tapestry and the tapestry, Easter Faberge eggs ... Paying at the exit of the Soviet management of museums very low export tax, Hammer evacuated and sent to New York a great unique collection of royal treasures, precious icons, paintings by Picasso and Matisse from the ownerless when a museum Shchukin.

[Meister]

LCR, thanks for the great sooooo interesting material. Be sure to read this book ... but it must be read with validol, because the heart bleeds, when you read what we have lost because of "the wise" leader. But you know what surprised me the most: where in the Hermitage, there were so many of Rubens, Rembrandt, Cranach, Van Dyck, etc.? I know that after Peter I "opened a" window to Europe, there was the formation of collections of museums, but that on such a scale? are we really so lost?

[Евгений]

Сообщение от Meister

Do we really so lost?

In thousands of times more than is written here is only a small tip of the iceberg ..

[color="# 666686"]Posted 10 hours 51 minutes[/color]

Сообщение от LCR

It is hoped that Hammer had left his children a legacy of a great number of Rembrandt, which he wrote this great restorer, and that the children Hammer live in prosperity, by selling them quietly.

Hammer, after the death was bankrupt .. debt was at 20 mln.ue.

[artemirra]

The fact that Russia has been very good tradition of gathering at the state level. Over the century and a half, the Hermitage staffed so that he could easily compete with the major European collections (the Louvre or the Prado), whose formation was going for much longer ...
I even validol it can not read. Only with curses to the Soviet regime.

[Nik]

Сообщение от Meister

I know that after Peter I "opened a" window to Europe, there was the formation of collections of museums, but that on such a scale? are we really so lost?

It is also necessary to consider that in those days, the Russian tsars were the richest people in the world, as Russia had abundant natural resources, which, after Peter I became well developed, but such a mess, as later under the Soviet regime, while still not there, all the resources belong to specific owners, interested in multiplying their own capital. And the state is well earned on this.

Not for nothing that in Soviet times, all statistics of the "achievements" of the Soviet people was based on a comparison with the 1913-th year - last year before the First World War, when capitalism developed in Russia, coupled with the Stolypin agrarian reform have raised the country's economy at an unattainable height. Russia was then the richest and most dynamic country in the world. Therefore, the Western powers (especially Germany) and were very interested to overthrow our country and not lose their position in world economics and politics - that they had succeeded with the help of the Bolsheviks, who were actively subsidized.

A Russian tsars highly favored the development of the arts, to be reputed the world the most enlightened and cultural - is still with Peter I went and later became fashionable and prestigious. And in fact the kings of the past (for example, our last tsar, Nicholas II) were very educated and enlightened people and invest more money in the form of museum collections, including the Hermitage collection, which the world bought up all the worthy work of art that can be to buy. And not only the kings - all the rich people of that time. Take the richest family in Russia Yusupov, whose state was comparable to a king - they were huge art collection, which are constantly replenished and purposefully.

So ... Ah! but what to say! .. Not for nothing that in those days said that the Bolsheviks were sold to Russia. So it.

[qwerty]

Сообщение от LCR

R, Williams in his book "Russian Art and American Money»

Dear LCR, please let the output of this book.

[Vladimir]

Сообщение от Nik

Not for nothing at the time said that the Bolsheviks were sold to Russia. So it is

vampires were those more ... But spravlelivosti sake, for the proceeds of the treasure, did not buy the yacht, Rolls-Royces in the minimum. Money needed for food, to industrialization, to eliminate the chaos. Motivation to sell the country "and slip away to London, you will agree, was not. Between Rubens and the plant chosen plant.

[Anton]

Vladimir
And although I am an active proponent of perestroika and capitalism, in this case agree with this positive aspect of socialism. And private money in the accounts of the enemy were not kept.
But on the other plants were built such that nature is brought to the point. For some reason, socialism and clean rivers are not combined.
And what is better - to kill nature, put in camps or buy real estate in London - question.

[Vladimir]

Anton, nature - a good thing, no doubt, but without a tractor factory and a domain with open-hearth furnaces of this nature would have benefited from strong blond boys from the other side of the Oder, the question was already on the agenda. I had to choose. And then, when the question is the nature or famine, well, then what choice? Or the question "tanks or naitsionalnoe gold"? Remember the delivery of Lend-Lease, when the last odavali for tanks, planes and jeeps? And rightly so. Pictures on the bread I was also not a good life.