Still Life with Flowers and Fruit

Baron Louis de Rothschild [1882-1955], Vienna.[1] his niece, Baroness Reininghaus [née Bettina Rothschild Springer, 1912-1974]; her husband, Baron Kurt Reininghaus [d. 1984]; sold to (Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna); sold c. 1994 to Mr. and Mrs. Philip Cunningham, Alexandria, Virginia; partially sold and partially given 1996 through (Otto Naumann, New York) to NGA. [1] This painting was confiscated by the Nazis from the Louis de Rothschild collection in Vienna in 1938 and was destined for Adolf Hitler's planned museum in Linz, Austria. It is listed on the 20 October 1939 _Vorschlag sur Verteilung der in Wien beschlagnahmte Gemaelde: Für das Kunstmuseum in Linz_ prepared by Hitler's curator, Hans Posse, and also Posse's _Verzeichnis der für Linz in Aussicht genommenen Gemälde_ dated 31 July 1940 (OSS Consolidated Interrogation Report #4, Linz: Hitler's Museum and Library, 15 December 1945, Attachments 72 and 73, U.S. National Archives RG226/Entry 190B/Box 35, copy in NGA curatorial files). The records of the Allies' Munich Central Collecting Point indicate that the painting was recovered by the Allies and restituted to Austria on 11 May 1948. It was returned to Louis de Rothschild in 1949 (Munich property card #1665; Austrian Receipt for Cultural Property dated 11 May 1948; copies in NGA curatorial files.). The painting is listed and illustrated in Birgit Schwarz, _Hitlers Museum: Die Fotoalben Gemäldegalerie Linz: Dokumente zum “Führermuseum”_, Vienna, 2004: no. V/1. See also Sophie Lillie, _Was Einmal War_, Vienna, 2003: 113-116.