Among the lots offered at Christie's Old Masters Evening Sale on July 8 will be two paintings with an interesting history behind them. The works in question are A merry company in a sumptuous interior, with musicians and tric-trac players by Dirck Hals and Dirck van Delen, and Still Life with Banquet by Jan Davidsz de Heem. The first has the merit of being one of the most monumental, ambitious and successful artistic collaborations of Hals and van Delen; the second is one of the most admired Dutch still lifes of the modern era.
Let's take a step back in time to World War II. Then, the works in question were owned by the Jewish art collector and businessman Jacob Lierens (1877-1949), who was forced to sell these works and flee with his wife after the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940.
The head of the Linz Special Commission, Hans Posse, bought the two paintings at auction with the intention of including them in the collection of the Führermuseum that Hitler planned to build in Linz, Austria, as home to his vast collection of stolen art from all over Europe.
In 2019, these works, after being recovered and then loaned by the government to Dutch museums, were finally returned to the heirs of the owners, following an investigation carried out on the war looting perpetrated by the Nazis. The decision of the Recovery and Restitution Committee stated the following: "The sale of the paintings was linked to the measures taken by the occupation forces against Jewish members of the population and was done to save the couple's life."
Henry Pettifer, head of Old Masters paintings at Christie's, said: “Jan Davidsz De Heem's extraordinarily detailed still life is one of his most celebrated works; while the interior by Dirck Hals and Dirck van Delen is one of the most grandiose genre scenes of the period [...] this will be the first time in 80 years that the paintings will go on the market and I foresee a strong interest in both of these works."
Dirck Hals and Dirck van Delen's work is estimated between £600,000- 1,000,000 ($835,000-1.4 million), while Jan Davidsz de Heem's is offered with an estimate between £3-5 million ($4-7 million).
