Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp The rest on the flight... Lot 2046

Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp The rest on the flight to Egypt Oil on wood (parquet). 50,5 x 42 cm. Signed lower right: cuyp. Provenance Probably collection of James Hazard (1748-1787). - Auction of his collection, Brussels, 14.4.1789, lot 40 ("Benjamin Cuyp. La Fuite en Egypte. Haut 1 p. 6p., l. 1 p. 2 p."), sold for f. 5.10. - Collection Jules Porgès (1839-1921), Paris. - Sold to the art dealer Franz Kleinberger on 9.4.1910. - Sold on 12.5.1910 to Adolphe Schloss (1842-1910). - In succession to Lucie Haas Schloss. - Deposited by Schloss heirs at Château de Chambon, Laguenne (Corrèze) from 8/20/1939 to 4/16/1943. - Transferred to Banque de France, Limoges, 16.4.1943 to 9.8.1943. - Transferred to CGQJ headquarters, Paris, 11. 8.1943 (Banque Dreyfus inventory AMAE MH 117, p. 10, no. 62, with black/white photo) - Transferred to Jeu de Paume, 11/1/1943. - Transferred to Führerbau, Munich, 11/24/1943 (Inventory B323/1212, p. 15, no. 45, with black/white photo). - Stolen from the Führerbau, 29-30.4.1945. - Private collection, Germany. - Auction Neumeister, Munich, 22.9.1993, lot 431. - Private collection, Netherlands, from 2015. Exhibitions On loan at the Museum Dordrecht, August 2015 - April 2016. Literature Ildikó Ember: Benjamin Gerritsz. Cuyp (1612-1652), in: Acta Historiae Artium 25, 1979, no. 21. - Werner Sumowski: Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler, Landau/Pfalz 1983, vol. VI, p. 3526, fig. p. 3579. This extremely fluidly painted work is a highlight in the oeuvre of the Dordrecht painter Benjamin Cuyp. The artist was trained by his half-brother Jacob Cuyp, but the spontaneous brushwork and chiaroscuro effects of his works show the strong influence of Rembrandt, especially from his early period in Leiden. Our painting is executed with bold, impasto brushstrokes and rich chiaroscuro effects. It was probably painted in the 1630s, early in the artist's career, when he was at his most innovative and talented. It is related to a painting by Cuyp with the same subject and similar treatment, kept in the Musée Municipal in Soissons. Cuyp seems to have been inspired by two paintings by Rembrandt with the same subject, one of 1627 in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Tours, the other of 1634 in a private collection, depicting a full moon and a lantern comparable to the one in our painting. Benjamin was the uncle of the landscape painter Aelbert Cuyp. The extraordinary painting was part of the famous collection of the Bavarian-born Jewish banker Adolphe Schloss (1842-1910), who moved to France in 1871 and took French citizenship. His collection was one of the most famous in fin-de-siècle Paris. Although it included paintings by such greats as Rembrandt, Rubens, and Frans Hals, it was praised by connoisseurs primarily for the outstanding works of "lesser" masters such as the present work by Cuyp. The painting was acquired in the summer of 1910 and must be one of the last works to enter the collection, as Schloss died on December 31 of that year. The work was acquired through an art dealer from the equally famous collection of Parisian financier Jules Porgès (1839-1921), who was one of the founders of the South African diamond industry and whose company was acquired by De Beers at an early stage. After Schloss' death, the collection passed to his wife, who preserved it unchanged and bequeathed it to her children in 1938. As a precautionary measure before the impending outbreak of World War II, the famous collection was moved to the Château de Chambon in southern France in 1939. After the Nazi occupation of France, this château fell under the control of the Vichy government, but the collection was so well known that an active search for the paintings was ordered from Berlin and the collection of more than 300 works was confiscated by the Vichy government in 1943. Because of the collection's notoriety, the paintings were individually photographed at the Louvre in 1943, making the Schloss collection one of the best-documented examples of looted art: 49 paintings went to the Louvre and 230 paintings were sent to the Führerbau in Munich, where they awaited removal to the Führermuseum in Linz, including the present work; another group of 22 paintings was designated for sale. With the fall of the Nazi regime and the turmoil that followed, the Führerbau was looted and many paintings disappeared; after the war, some were returned to heirs and auctioned off, but not all paintings were recovered. Many paintings from the palace collection are now in major museums around the world. The Schloss Collection is the subject of an online pilot project for looted art by the Jewish Digital Cultural Recovery Project (JDCRP), whose goal is to create a