Jacques Goudstikker (30 August 1897 – 16 May 1940)[1] was a JewishDutchart dealer who fled the Netherlands when it was invaded by Nazi Germany during World War II, leaving three furnished properties and an extensive and significant art collection including over 1200 paintings, many of which had been previously catalogued as "Old Masters". The entire collection, which had been surveyed by Hermann Goering himself, was subsequently looted by the Nazis. Between the two World Wars, Jacques Goudstikker had been the most important Dutch dealer of Old Master paintings, according to Peter C. Sutton, executive director and CEO of the Bruce Museum of Arts and Science.[2] Despite efforts of Goudstikker's widow after the war to regain possession of the collection, it was not until after her death that the Dutch government finally restituted 202 paintings to the Goudstikker family in 2006. To finance efforts to reclaim more of the stolen art, a large portion of them were sold at auction in 2007 for almost $10 million.[3]
In 1919, he joined his father's Amsterdam gallery, restructured it as a public besloten vennootschap with himself as the director and major shareholder, and introduced a notably more international style; publishing catalogues in French rather than Dutch, and showing for the first time Italian Renaissance paintings, including The Madonna and Child by Francesco Squarcione. This was revolutionary in the Netherlands of the time, where in 1906, Adriaan Pit, the director of the Rijksmuseum, had stated "We have become chauvinistic with regard to the field of art. This worship of our old school of painting, which started thirty years ago is still alive and appears not to let us appreciate any foreign art."[4]
Following World War I, Amsterdam once again became a centre of international commerce, and Goudstikker flourished, along with fellow art dealers, P. de Boer and Henri Douwes; in 1927 he moved to a larger gallery. Goudstikker rose above his contemporaries, presenting works from the Dutch Golden Age alongside panels by 14th century, 15th century and 16th century Dutch, Flemish, German and Italian painters, mixing paintings, sculptures, carpets, and other works of art together, in the sophisticated style of Wilhelm von Bode of Berlin, much emulated in London, Paris, and New York City. Goudstikker's taste extended to the design of his catalogs, which were minor works of art in themselves.[4]
Goudstikker maintained close ties with art historians and collectors. In the introduction to his 1928 catalog, he wrote "[W]e are happy as a logical development in our Italian department in having obtained the assistance of our compatriot Doctor Raimond van Marle", author of the influential The Development of the Italian Schools of Painting. His clients, including
Jan Herman van Heek, Daniel G. van Beuningen, Heinrich Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza de Kászon, and Otto Lanz, also partook in this mix of connoisseurship and scholarship.[4]
The stock market crash and Great Depression took their toll on the connoisseur art trade, as on other luxury businesses. Goudstikker was forced to economize on production of his catalogs, but he still managed to organize a Rubens exhibition in 1933, as well as what may have been his ultimate achievement, participating in the exhibition of Italian Paintings in Dutch Collections at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1934, where he personally showed Queen Wilhelmina the exhibits.[4]
While escaping the Nazis in May 1940, Goudstikker fell in the hold of the SS Bodegraven [nl] in the English Channel, fatally breaking his neck.[5]
Herengracht 458, in the Gouden Bocht, office and showroom of Jacques Goudstikker from 1927 until 1940.
After Goudstikker fled in 1940 the large Goudstikker collection [nl] (1,113 numbered paintings and an unknown quantity of unnumbered paintings)[1] was left behind to be looted and became the largest claim for restitution of Nazi-looted art.[5]
In a for him typical forced sale, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring obtained the entire collection over the objections of Goudstikker's widow Dési von Halban: on 3 June 1940, Goudstikker's employee Arie ten Broek was named director of the company, then, on 13 July, ten Broek and another of Goudstikker's employees, Jan Dik were paid 180 thousand guilders each to sell all paintings and works of art to Göring for two million guilders, a fraction of their value, and the art gallery to German banker Alois Miedl, for 550 thousand guilders. Through a series of transactions later deemed illegal, Miedl acquired title to the J. Goudstikker trade name, what little art remained in the collection, and Goudstikker's real estate (Nijenrode castle in Breukelen, the Herengracht 458 building in Amsterdam, and the country estate Oostermeer in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel). Using Goudstikker's internationally renowned trade name as a marketing asset, Miedl went on to make a fortune selling art, particularly to Nazi Germany.[1][5]
Following World War II, the Allied forces recovered this art from Germany and gave them to the Dutch government as part of 'amicable restitution of rights', with the intention of returning them to their rightful owners; however, instead of returning them to Goudstikker's wife Desi, who sought their recovery from 1946 to 1952, they were retained as part of the Netherlands' National Collection at the Rijksmuseum. Dutch investigative journalistPieter den Hollander wrote a 1998 book, De zaak Goudstikker (The Goudstikker Case), on the subject. Subsequently, Goudstikker's heirs sued for possession of these works, but their claim was rejected by the State Secretary of Education, Culture and Science. Official investigations, however, later confirmed the mishandling of postwar restitutions, and as a result, the Dutch government created the Restitutions Committee to review claims to art treasures in the government's possession. On the recommendations of the Herkomst Gezocht Committee chaired by R. E. O. Ekkart [nl], after eight years of legal battles, in 2006 the Dutch government returned 202 paintings to Goudstikker's sole surviving heir, his daughter-in-law, Marei von Saher (Goudstikker's wife,
Dési, and their only son, Edo, both having died in 1996). In 2007, Von Saher sold many, netting almost $10 million at auction.[5]
Some pieces were not returned to von Saher because the Dutch government no longer had them in 2006. In particular, Adam and Eve by Cranach had been transferred by the government to another person (under a claim later found to be invalid) and in 2006 were in the United States, out of the control of the Dutch government. Von Saher sued unsuccessfully in U.S. court for their return.[9]
Goudstikker heirs talk about Jacques and his collection at the opening of the exhibition Reclaimed - Paintings from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker 2009-2010
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