The Adolphe Schloss Collection

Dutch and Flemish art collections in late nineteenth-century France

Adolphe Schloss (1842-1910) was a French art collector of German Jewish ancestry who was born in Fürth in Lower Bavaria, Germany. After moving to France, he married Lucie Mathilde Haas (1858-1938) on 10 December 1878; they had six children. Upon his death on New Year’s Eve of 1910-1911, Adolphe Schloss owned at least 334 paintings, all of which were on display in his “hôtel particulier” located at 38 Avenue Henri Martin (Paris). The Schloss Collection was known in turn-of-the-century France as a large and important collection of old master paintings. Other great contemporary French private collections of Dutch and Flemish old master paintings belonged to Prince Anatoli Demidov (1813-1880), Baron Etienne-Edmond-Martin de Beurnonville (1825-1906), Rodolphe Kann (1845-1905), and Maurice Kann (1839-1906), to name a few.

The Kann brothers lived at 49-51 Avenue d’Iéna, the Polish collector André Mniszech lived close by, at 22 Rue Boissière while financier Jules Porgés (1839-1921) resided at 14-18 Avenue Montaigne. As an extension of business practices, gentlemen’s clubs, and exclusive societies were valuable assets for nurturing and broadening far-reaching professional and social networks. In that regard, Schloss’ memberships in cultural institutions were of significant importance. As a member of La Société des Amis du Louvre (The Society of Friends of the Louvre), he would have met private collectors and art dealers. In addition, he belonged to the Automobile Club de France.

Extensive networks: collectors, connoisseurs, and dealers

Schloss’ networks extended beyond the borders of France. For instance, he corresponded with Wilhelm von Bode, curator and later director of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum—now Bode Museum—in Berlin. Schloss sent two letters to Bode on 16 July and 22 July 1910, discussing the payment for a painting that he purchased from the Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein. In the letter on 22 July (see sources) Schloss mentioned: “I try to carry out the entire transaction anonymously, if possible, but I definitely do not want my name to be published for the M.1000; I will definitely check the latter reserve.” Bode exerted his influence through an elaborate network of connections that included dealers, art agents, private collectors, and auction houses, across Europe.

The earliest documented acquisition by Adolphe Schloss is probably his 1889 purchase of a work by Rembrandt at the sale of David P. Sellar’s collection in Paris. Schloss also did business frequently with Parisian dealers Franz Kleinberger and Charles Sedelmeyer. According to the Kleinberger archives, Schloss exchanged paintings, prints, and drawings in lieu of payment in order to buy other artworks, a fairly common practice among collectors and dealers.

The paintings in the Schloss Collection

The majority of Adolphe Schloss’ collection consisted of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century art as well as Early Northern European masters and a few Italian and French paintings. He bought and sold according to his personal taste. He might have been influenced in his selection of paintings by the art critic and connoisseur Theophilé Thoré-Bürger (1807-1869), who promoted Dutch seventeenth-century art—especially works by Frans Hals, Vermeer, and Carel Fabritius. Thoré-Bürger’s publications had a profound impact on collectors in Europe. Several collectors, dealers, museum directors, and art critics, including curator Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929), consulted with him.

Schloss’s collection included works by such artists as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Gerard Dou, Salomon van Ruysdael, Aelbert Cuyp, and Jan Steen but also by less well-known painters whose works rarely found their way into French collections, including Pieter van Asch, Joost van Geel, Pieter van Roestraeten, and David Rijckaert III. The great Flemish masters Rubens, Jacob Jordaens, Adriaen Brouwer, Pieter Brueghel, and David Teniers the Younger were represented in Schloss’ collection.

Genre paintings, displaying scenes of quotidian life, accounted for most of the works in the Schloss Collection, including paintings by Jan Steen and Pieter de Hooch. Among these were fourteen Adriaen Brouwer paintings—including those attributed to Brouwer and in the circle of Brouwer. The collection also included works by the Leidse fijnschilders (Leiden Fijnschilders), with works by Gerard Dou, Frans van Mieris the Elder, and Pieter van Slingelandt. A rich and varied selection of landscapes could be found among the Schloss paintings, including works by Meindert Hobbema and Jacob Ruysdael that capture typical Dutch scenes of a winter landscape with windmills, or panoramic views near Haarlem by Jan Vermeer van Haarlem. Although there were few pieces treating historical, religious, or mythological subjects in Schloss’ collection, one painting by Salomon de Bray stands out: a panel with a young woman combing her hair—she could be a nymph or shepherdess—wearing simple clothing without embellishments, with her breasts exposed. There are only a few paintings in the collection with nudity and sensual undertones.

The religiously themed paintings came from the studios of early Northern European masters (including the so-called “Flemish Primitives”), some of whom are considered important: Petrus Christus and Rogier van der Weyden, chief among them. The Flemish Primitives, also referred to as the early Netherlandish painters, were rediscovered in the second half of the nineteenth century, their paintings subjected to new scholarly interpretations and analyses. A large exhibition was held in Bruges in 1902 entitled Les Primitifs flamands et l'art ancien, with nearly 400 paintings on display. Many of the works shown came from private collectors like Schloss, who himself loaned five paintings to the exhibition: works by Petrus Christus and Marcel Koffersmans, three works that he eventually sold, two small panels by Lucas van Leyden, and lastly, a painting by the Master of the Death of the Virgin—also known as Joos van Cleve—depicting a female saint.

Schloss regularly loaned paintings to exhibitions across Europe. In 1903 he loaned eleven pictures to the Haagsche Kunstkring in The Hague (the Netherlands) for the exhibition Oude Portretten, a survey of old masters portraits by such artists as Pieter Codde, Judith Leyster, and Jan Steen. Some paintings were loaned multiple times for exhibitions during Schloss’s lifetime. Dutch art historian Wilhelm Martin mentioned in an article written for Elsevier (1911) that paintings from the Schloss Collection were missing from an exhibition of Dutch old masters organized by the French magazine L'Art et les Artistes in Paris. Their absence was most likely due to Adolphe Schloss’ death on the last day of 1910.

The Schloss Gallery

Paintings were hung from floor to ceiling on the walls of the Schloss residence. Schloss used picture-hanging principles (cabinet de tableaux) dating back to the late eighteenth century, in a dense, symmetrical arrangement with the vertical axis in the middle to create a mirrored symmetrical arrangement, without any categorization by school. He organized small groupings according to subject matter and size. This arrangement largely corresponds to a picture hanging strategy described by the art collector Barthélémy Augustin Blondel d'Azincourt (1719-1794)—the son of the famous art collector Augustin de Blondel de Gagny (1695-1776)—in his manuscript La Première Idée de la curiosité. Furthermore, Blondel d’Azincourt described how a row of small pictures, whose details could be enjoyed with the aid of a magnifying glass, should be placed beneath the larger pictures. This is clearly visible in Schloss’s gallery, where he placed his smaller paintings in the bottom row. Chairs were placed in the gallery to enable visitors to sit and look at the paintings more closely.

The preservation of the collection at the Schloss residence until the outbreak of war in 1939 tells us that the Schloss family treasured the collection as a living memorial to Adolphe Schloss.

Sources

Jowell, Frances Suzman. "Thoré-Bürger's Art Collection: “A Rather Unusual Gallery of Bric-à-Brac.” Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art. Vol. 30. no. 1/2. 2003. 54-55. JSTOR. Accessed 7 June 2021. www.jstor.org/stable/3780951

Paumen, Vanessa. “The Flemish primitives: What's in a name?” Vlaamse Primitieven. Vlaamsekunstcollectie. Accessed 10 Oct. 2020. http://vlaamseprimitieven.vlaamsekunstcollectie.be/en/research/webpublications/the-flemish-primitives-whats-in-a-name

Bailey, Colin B. “Conventions of the Eighteenth-Century Cabinet De Tableaux: Blondel D'Azincourt's La Première Idée De La Curiosité.” The Art Bulletin. Vol. 69. no. 3. 1987, 431-447. JSTOR. Accessed 7 June 2021. www.jstor.org/stable/3051064

Westerman, Mariët. The Art of the Dutch Republic 1585-1717. London: Laurence King Publishing, 1996. 103-112.

“Ich versuche wenn möglich die ganze Transaktion anonym zu betätigen, unbedingt aber möchte ich dass für die M.1000 mein Name nicht veröffentlich wird, auf letztere Reserve prüfe ich mit Bestimmtheit.” Letter of 22 July 1910 from Adolphe Schloss to Wilhelm von Bode, SMB-ZA, IV-NL Bode 4835. Nachlaß Wilhelm von Bode, Zentralarchiv, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kultutbestiz.

Image of Adolphe Schloss' handwritten letter to Wilhelm von Bode.

Image of the transcription of the letter.

Image 1: “Vue d'une des pièces de l'hôtel particulier d'Adolphe Schloss (collectionneur) au 38, avenue Henri-Martin (Paris).” Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme. Accessed 8 June 2021. https://www.mahj.org/fr/decouvrir-collections-betsalel/vue-d-une-des-pieces-de-l-hotel-particulier-d-adolphe-schloss-8

Image 2: “Vue d'une des pièces de l'hôtel particulier d'Adolphe Schloss (collectionneur) au 38, avenue Henri-Martin (Paris).” Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judäisme. Accessed 8 June 2021. https://www.mahj.org/fr/decouvrir-collections-betsalel/vue-d-une-des-pieces-de-l-hotel-particulier-d-adolphe-schloss-9

Transcription of the letter:

Excellenz W. Bode

z. Gasthaus bei Harzburg

Hochachtungsvoller Herr Geheimrath

Ich empfing Ihre Zeilen am 19. (…)

(…) gemäss werde ich Anfangs September bei der Depositenkasse der Deutschen Bank W. (…)str. 26 – MK 10000 – für Ihr Museums-Konto einzahlen und (…) Ihnen (…) (…) (…) machen. Der Bank selbst werde ich keine Spezifikation für (…) des Betrags (M 6000 für den K.F. M. (…) / M 4000 Guthaben? Zu Gunsten der K.F.M.) geben, (…) Ihren (…). Ich versuche wenn möglich die ganze Transaktion anonym zu betätigen, unbedingt aber möchte ich dass für die M.1000 mein Name nicht veröffentlich wird, auf letztere Reserve prüfe ich mit Bestimmtheit. Mit Abholung der (...) hat es Zeit bis (...) 21/22 August (...) ich (...) Ende (...) und werde erst im September wieder in Paris seins. Ich (...) bitte darum 4 rue de Martel (...) zu lassen.

(...) (...) Katalog-Projekt (...) zu unterhalten haben wir bis zu Ihrem (...) im Sept. Zeit. Die Zahl der Bilder ist (...) (...) (...) (...), trotzdem ist (...) (...) haben, (...) 300 ausgenommen. (...) (...) (...) für meinen Katalog ist der Art des Kat. Der National Gallery (...) Sir Ed. J. Poynter, (...) (...) (...) der Meister der (...) Katalog der Bilder der renommierten Schulen der K. (...) mit Abbildung (...) Gemälde, (...) (...) aber(...) (...) (...) in dieser (...) (...) Angelegenheit (...), ich hoffe dass Ihnen Gesundheit vor allem in Ihrer Zeit (...) (...) (...) Aufgaben zu (...).

(...) (...) (...) erfolgreichen Ausnutzug Ihres Aufenthaltes (...) (...).

Mit vorzüglicher Hochachtung,