Gallery of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in Brussels (Rothschild)

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm and the artist in the archducal picture gallery in Brussels is a 1653 painting of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm's Italian art collection by the Flemish Baroque painter David Teniers the Younger. It is now held in a private collection, but it was previously owned by the Rothschild family, from whom it was taken in World War II and placed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum where it stayed for 50 years until restitution in 1999.[1][2]

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his Gallery in Brussels
Year1653
Dimensions70.9 cm (27.9 in) × 87.6 cm (34.5 in)
Locationprivate collection
IdentifiersRKDimages ID: 44344

The painting shows the Archduke as a collector with friends admiring a set of paintings. The artist himself holds his hat in his hand and is listening to his patron as the archduke gestures with his cane towards some recent acquisitions. The paintings are arranged in rows on the walls of an L-shaped room, with the men standing in front of a doorway with the words "TIMORE DOMINI" below a sculpted portrait of the archduke. Another set of paintings is positioned in the foreground leaning against chairs for inspection.

This painting is dated 1653 and was painted after earlier, larger versions that David Teniers the Younger prepared to document the Archduke's collection before he employed 12 engravers to publish his Theatrum Pictorium, considered the "first illustrated art catalog". He published this book of engravings after the Archduke had moved to Austria and taken his collection with him. It was published in Antwerp in 1659 and again in 1673.[3] The most impressive of these gallery paintings was the large version on copper in the Museo del Prado with a different selection of paintings. That was produced as a gift from the archduke to Philip IV of Spain.

Paintings depicted

Many of the recognizable paintings in the collection, not all of which were included in the Italian catalog prepared by Teniers, are still in the Viennese collection. This copy was probably produced in tandem with a similar version in the Museo Lázaro Galdiano as a gift.

image article painter year collection inventory nr. catalog code
Landscape Joos de Momper and Jan Brueghel the Elder
Lady with a Fan Anthony van Dyck National Gallery of Art 1957.14.1
Drunken Silenus Rubens 1609 Durazzo Pallavicini
Judith with the head of Holofernes Carlo Saraceni 1613 Kunsthistorisches Museum GG_41 39
 St George Antonello da Messina (copy by David Teniers the Younger) private collection
Susanna and the Elders Cornelis Schut 1650 Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
Salome receives the head of John the Baptist
Still-Life with a Peeled Lemon Jan Davidsz. de Heem 1650s Louvre INV 1320
Landscape I Foqveel (Jacques Fouquier?)
Landscape Hans Bol
Lady with an Ermine Titian (copy by David Teniers the Younger) 94
 Christ Carrying the Cross meets with Veronica Girolamo da Ponte Kunsthistorisches Museum GG 1869
Holy Family with St. John Palma Vecchio 1520 Uffizi 950
Toilet of Venus David Teniers the Younger 1655 Philadelphia Museum of Art Cat. 696 30
 Virgin and Child, with young John the Baptist and Saint Anne Conrad Lauwers after Andrea Schiavone
Hercules, Deianira and the Centaur Nessus Paolo Veronese 1586 Kunsthistorisches Museum GG_1525 115
Portrait of a Young Man
The Holy Infants Leonardo da Vinci circa 1486 Museo di Capodimonte
Blind Leading the Blind Domenico Fetti 1620s Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden 644 215
 Portrait of a White-Bearded Man, subject of Old Masters (novel) Tintoretto 1570 Kunsthistorisches Museum GG_25 103
Portrait of an unknown man Kalker
Portrait of a Doge Tintoretto (copy by David Teniers the Younger) circa 1570 Courtauld Gallery P.1978.PG.435 97
 Venus and Cupid Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert 1630s private collection
Portrait of an unknown man Holbeen
Portrait of an unknown man Tintoretto (copy by Lucas Vorsterman the Younger) 104
 Nativity Michael Sittow 1510/20 Kunsthistorisches Museum GG_5878
Portrait of an unknown man Tintoretto
Landscape Paul Bril
Flower Still-life Alexander Hoefnagel
Woman looking over her Shoulder Anthony van Dyck 1630s Hermitage ГЭ-7725
The Bravo Titian 1520 Kunsthistorisches Museum GG_64 23
 Portrait of an unknown man Jan van Scorel (copy by David Teniers the Younger)

Provenance

This painting was one of those forcibly "donated" by Baron Alphonse de Rothschild in 1938 and it was meant for the Führermuseum, looted by the Nazis following the Austrian Anschluss with Germany in 1938. The looted painting was stored with many other Rothschild treasures in the Austrian salt mines of Altaussee where they were discovered by the Allies after the war and returned to the Austrian government. Despite many efforts by Alphonse and his heirs, only granddaughter Bettina Burr was able to achieve restitution. This painting was finally paid for in 1999 after 50 years of "ownership" with a credit line of "donated by Clarice Rothschild in memory of her husband".[1][4]

References
  1. Erzherzog Leopold Wilhelm in seiner Galerie Brüssel
  2. Record 1480069 on Christie's website, for lot 224 of the London, 8 July 1999 sale "The Collection of Barons Nathaniel and Albert von Rothschild"
  3. Online version of the Theatrum Pictorium, 1673
  4. Lot record 1480069 at Christie's website for Rothschild 1999 sale
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