Table de Salon
Table de SalonTable de Salon

Table de Salon

Adrien Delorme,
(Maître 1748)

Louis XV period, around 1750

stamped «DELORME»

Measurements: 48 cm x 31.5 cm x 73 cm
Oak body with rosewood and rosewood veneered with fine engraved and partially colored  flowers marquetry in various precious woods

paper label for Museum für Kunsthandwerk Frankfurt am Main with inventory number GOR.539

PROVENANCE

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Max von Goldschmidt Rothschild, Roter Salon in Palais Goldschmidt, Bockenheimer Landstrasse, Frankfurt am Main Museum für Kunsthandwerk Frankfurt am Main, acquired from the above November 11, 1938 (inventory no. GOR 539) restituted to the heirs of Max von Goldschmidt Rothschild, January, 19th, 1949

Property from the Estate of Sarah Jane Pansa, sold Sotheby's New York, November 8, 1985, lot 62 

The salon table, curved on all sides, light, delicate and highly elegant, is a masterpiece by Adrien Delorme (1722-1791), and a characteristic piece of furniture in the Louis XV style. It shows two drawers to keep a variety of utensils, to purpose, the table is fitted with an elevated rim, lest the usually smaller objects handled on the table fall to the floor. A generous marquetry of flowers, partly colored, allows for a more female note of this piece of furniture, and quite rightly so: these universal and easy to move tables were predominantly used by the women in the house.

 

This piece once was in the possession of the Museum für Kunsthandwerk (Museum of Applied Arts) in Frankfurt am Main. It came there, illegally, from the Red Saloon of the Palais Goldschmidt-Rothschild on Bockenheimer Landstrasse in Frankfurt, a provenance which guarantees highest quality standards.

1938 Maximilian Freiherr von Goldschmidt-Rothschild was forced by the Nazis so sell his Frankfurt palais on 10, Bockenheimer Landstrasse, and his important art collection of some 1400 works to the City of Frankfurt. The artworks were mainly given to the Museum für Kunsthandwerk (today: Museum für Angewandte Kunst), Städtische Galerie (City Gallery) and the Städelmuseum. The palais itself  was turned into the "Museum für Kunstgewerbe II". Timely removal secured the collection's survival of WWII.

On August 6th, 1945, the estate administration demanded the restitution of the collection, with reference to a forced sale at a below value price. The heirs asked the lawyer Prof. Dr. Ernst Cahn in London to act on their behalf, and he was appointed trustee, together with the estate administrator, by the Military Government in April 1946.

Even though Cahn acknowledged that the City had not exerted any direct pressure and had acted by the book in the collection's administration, the sale had nevertheless been a forced sale under the given circumstances. The heirs agreed to sell a part of the collection to the city. In spite of statements of regret and some protest from museum parties, the restitution of the collection was agreed upon with a parallel transfer of the building on 8, Bockenheimer Landstrasse to the city as a compensation for the buying price. The settlement restitution of the Goldschmidt-Rothschild Collection in a took place as early as 1948-49, (see ffmhist.de), parts of the collection later hit the international art market.



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