Landscape with Christ Child

With Antiquaria, Rome, by May 20, 1949;

Transferred or on consignment from Antiquaria by the dealer Adolph Loewi, Los Angeles, stock no. 12513, May 20, 1949-November 1950 [1];

Purchased from Adolph Loewi by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1950.

NOTES:

[1] Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS.129 Loewi-Robertson Archive, stock book 1939-1952, copy in Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. Prior to the Second World War, Loewi’s gallery was based in Venice, with a branch in New York. When the Loewi family left Italy in 1939, they left the Venice business in the hands of Alessandro Morandotti, the gallery’s director. Morandotti took over the gallery operations and moved the business to Rome under the name Antiquaria, while simultaneously continuing to oversee the Venetian branch. According to Antonia Bartoli, in “Flagging a Red Flag: Contextualizing the Activities of Alessandro Morandotti between 1939 and 1945 in Light of the Art Looting Investigation Unit Report (1946-1947),” Studi di Memofonte 22 (2019): 190, Morandotti returned both the Rome and Venice branches of Antiquaria to Loewi immediately following the end of the war, and eventually acquired the Italian branches from Loewi in the 1950s. This suggests that this drawing was part of the larger Loewi firm’s stock, and this transaction was likely a consignment or transfer from the Rome branch to Los Angeles.