Portrait of a Man

ArtistAttributed to Sir Martin Archer Shee British, 1769–1850

Datecirca 1815–1830

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions51 x 40 in. (129.5 x 101.6 cm)
Frame: 57 3/8 x 47 3/8 x 3 in. (145.7 x 120.3 x 7.6 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the State of North Carolina

Object number52.9.78

On View

On view

ProvenanceCreated England, circa 1815–1830. Madame Roussel, Paris, before 1912; [her sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 25–28, 1912, no. 14, as Sir Thomas Lawrence, Portrait of Sir Charles Lauther]; A. Decour, Paris [1]. Baron Sigismund von Springer (1875–1928) and Baroness Valentine Noémi (Valli) Springer-Rothschild (1886–1969), Vienna; forced sale to the Kunsthistorischen Museum, ordered by the Rechstatthalter of Vienna, February 15, 1941, as “Lawrence, Bildnis Sir Charles Lauter” [2]; restituted to Valentine Springer-Rothschild, Switzerland, 1947 [3]; [Newhouse Galleries, New York]; sold to NCMA, 1951.

[1] Noted as the buyer in the annotated version of the Roussel catalogue in the library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is probably Auguste Decour, who was an architect, interior designer, and gallerist whose most recognizable American project was designing the wall panels of the Fragonard room in the Frick mansion in New York in 1916, now The Frick Collection. A sale of the Decour collection took place at Hotel Drouot in Paris 1929 (“Collection A. Decour, Première partie,” April 10–11, 1929), but was entirely comprised of ornamental drawings. If there were subsequent sales of this collection that followed, none have been identified.
[2] One of eight paintings sold. Letter ordering the sale and transcriptions of archival documents in Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens (Vienna: Czernin Verlag, 2003), 1241–1243. Valentine Springer-Rothschild was of Jewish heritage and following persecution after the 1938 Anschluss of Vienna she fled to Switzerland in 1939, where she remained after the war. Because she also had British citizenship, her possessions were considered “enemy assets” and were difficult for the Nazi government of Vienna to gain access to, though multiple attempts were made.
[3] See Lillie, Was einmal war, 1242. Seven of the eight paintings were returned to Valentine Springer-Rothschild after the war. The eighth, another portrait by Lawrence, was kept by the Kunsthistorischen Museum in exchange for the export licenses for the other seven.

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