A Mutilated Soldier

Otto (1870-1944) and Magdalena (1879-1950) Blohm, Hamburg, Germany; Caracas, Venezuela; and New York, by 1944-1950 [1];

Blohm estate, 1950-April 25, 1961;

Purchased at the estate’s sale, The Property of the Late Otto and Magdalene Blohm, Part II, Sotheby’s London, April 25, 1961, lot 457, by an unknown private collector [2];

By descent to the private collector’s heir, by 2000;

Purchased from the heir by Giovanni (1917-2004) and Gabriella (1920-2011) Barilla, Geneva, Switzerland, 2000-2011 [3];

Their posthumous sale, The Collection of Giovanni & Gabriella Barilla, Geneva, Sotheby’s London, March 14, 2012, lot 192;

Purchased at An Italian Collecting Journey: 16th-20th Century Paintings and Decorative Arts, Sotheby’s Milan, September 25, 2025, lot 103, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2025.

NOTES:

[1] Otto and Magdalena Blohm were prolific collectors of European porcelain from their marriage in 1899 until Otto’s death in 1944. With the onset of the Second World War, they carefully packed their collection and put it into storage, first at Magdalena’s brother Hermann’s farm outside Hamburg, and later in the cellar of their own home at 36 Harvestehuderweg. Although their house was damaged by an incendiary bomb, the collection survived the war unscathed. Otto died of a stroke in 1944. After the war, Magdalena traveled to New York, bringing her Chelsea snuffboxes with her. The rest of her collection was shipped to New York with the assistance of Eric Warburg, a family friend serving in the US intelligence service. This transfer occurred sometime before January 1948, when some of the pieces were exhibited at Frank Partridge’s gallery on 56th Street. For more about the Blohms, see the forward to the exhibition catalogue, The Collection of 18th Century European Porcelains assembled by the late Mr. Otto Blohm, opening 15th January 1948 (Baltimore, MD: John F. Osbourne, Inc., 1948); Günter Stiller, “Blohms Porzellan-Juwelen,” Hamburger Abendblatt (June 29, 2005): 13; and Victoria Reed, “Museum Acquisitions in the Era of the Washington Principles: Porcelain from the Emma Budge Estate,” Studi di Memofonte no. 22 (2019): 11-12.

[2] Angela Caròla-Perrotti, former director of the ceramics department, Christie’s Italy, wrote in the catalogue note on this figure for the Sotheby’s auction on March 14, 2012 that the piece was purchased at the 1961 Blohm sale by a private collector. A price list in the 1961 catalogue lists the buyer as ‘Patch’, who has been identified in the provenance of other objects as the dealer Julius Weitzner. According to the Getty Provenance Index Collectors Files, however, ‘Patch’ was used by Sotheby’s to record lots which failed to sell. It is currently unknown which is correct in this instance.

[3] According to Angela Caròla-Perrotti [see note 2], this figure, “…was subsequently acquired by Giovanni and Gabriella Barilla from a direct descendant [of the 1961 purchaser], an acquisition in which I had the privilege of being involved.” Giovanni (known as Gianni) Barilla was the head of the Barilla pasta company, begun by his grandfather in Parma in 1877. He and his wife Gabriella had an extensive art collection, which was especially rich in Italian and German porcelain.