Édouard Jonas (Q3579906)

Better known as Ernest Cognacq’s artistic adviser and as the first curator of the Cognacq-Jay Museum in Paris, Édouard Jonas was also a successful art dealer who owned a gallery 3 Place Vendôme In Paris, and one on 8 East 56th Street in New York’s the Upper East Side. He sold in both sites a vast array of eighteenth-century decorative arts, old master paintings and, later, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. The list of his clients included Ernest Cognacq, Solomon R. Guggenheim, Samuel Kress, Chester Dale, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fogg Art Museum, the Detroit Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to name but a few. (English)

employer

Musée Cognacq-Jay

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position held

member of the French National Assembly

electoral district

Grasse

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member of political party

Socialist Republican Union

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owner of

The Blind Man

end time

1936

1 reference

reference URL

https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/297470

quotation

Possibly [D. H. Kahnweiler, Paris]. Possibly B. Schüler, Bochum. [Galerie Pierre, Paris], sold; to [René Gimpel, Paris], sold; to Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, 1930, by exchange; to [Edouard Jonas, Paris and New York], 1936. Valentine Gallery, New York, sold; to Maurice Wertheim, New York, 1936, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1951.NOTE: Provenance derived from a letter from The Toledo Museum of Art, 31 August 1978, in the curatorial file, and "Degas to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection," John O'Brian; Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1988. (English)

publisher

Harvard Art Museums

retrieved

14 June 2023

Young Girl with a Mandolin

1 reference

reference URL

https://dia.org/collection/young-girl-mandolin-41469

Galérie Jonas

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Woman with a Crow

1 reference

archive URL

https://web.archive.org/web/20121224083005if_/http://www.toledomuseum.org:80/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Provenance-Research-lowres.pdf

significant event

persecution of Jews in the Nazi era

1 reference

reference URL

https://www.nga.gov/collection/provenance-info.34839.html#biography

claim for restitution of an artwork

1 reference

reference URL

https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf/4 recommendations 2-2-2012.pdf

restitution of Nazi-looted art

point in time

2011

2 references

reference URL

https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf/4 recommendations 2-2-2012.pdf

quotation

On 19 December 2011, the Committee issued a positive recommendation on an application for the restitution of two paintings. The Committee concluded that they were Landscape with cattle in a shallow river, Theobald Michau – photo: RCE, NK 2837originally owned by French art dealer and politician Edouard Jonas and seized in Bordeaux in 1940 in the name of Hermann Göring.In 1944, the works were part of a swap in which Göring relinquished them to art dealer Alois Miedl in exchange for a work by Vermeer, which later turned out to be a forgery by Han van Meegeren. After the war, the two paintings ended up in the Netherlands Art Property Collection. The Committee advised returning the paintings to Jonas's heirs. [RC 1.117 (English)

stated in

Netherlands Returns Paintings Looted by Goering to Jewish Heir

reference URL

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-02-02/netherlands-returns-two-paintings-looted-by-hermann-goering-to-jewish-heir

award received

Knight of the Legion of Honour

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described at URL

https://www.restitutiecommissie.nl/en/recommendation/jonas/

language of work or name

English

1 reference

quotation

Edouard Léon Jonas (hereafter referred to as: Jonas) was born in Paris on 9 May 1883 and descended from a family of Jewish antique dealers. Before the war he ran an art dealership at Place Vendôme 3 in Paris. As far as the Committee was able to ascertain, this was a one-man business. According to the applicant, Jonas also had a sizeable private art collection. From 1936, Jonas was a member of the French parliament for the socialist and republic union as deputy for the Alpes Maritimes. Jonas was married for the fourth and final time to Assunta Genova Maria Bertozzi. All three previous marriages had ended in divorce. Jonas survived the war and died on 3 December 1961 in Paris. After the German invasion of France on 13 May 1940, Jonas attempted to bring his paintings and antique furniture to safety. On 1 and 10 June 1940, he sent these objects to Bordeaux in two train carriages where they were stored by the firm of R. Médeville & Fils. Pursuant to an act of 23 July 1940 and a regulation of 6 September 1940 proclaimed by the French Vichy regime, Jonas’ French nationality was revoked, after which his possessions were confiscated. (English)

Commons category

Édouard Jonas

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