In order to get a deeper appreciation of the bowl, I wanted to track its history to coming to the art fund and get a better idea of who it's previous owners had been. The bowls originally belonged to Henry Van den Bergh, who was an industrialist born in Oss in the Netherlands, and moved to London in 1870 to work in the family margarine business.
This merged with Lever Brothers to become Unilever in 1929. He because a member of the Executive Committee of the National Art Collections Fund (q.v.) in the 1910s-1920s. He was a major donor, throughout the National Art Collections Fund, to most Departments of the British Museum and of Dutch tiles to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The National Art Collections Fund hold an extract of his will, which states that his children (Col Donald Van den Bergh, d. 1949; Duncan Van den Bergh, Mrs. S. Roskill, d. 1983; and Mrs Dorrit Talbot) were to draw lots for his art works, which would then be held by that child for life and following their death, to be distributed by the Trustees of the Van den Bergh Family Trust to the National Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A, the Tate and the Art Fund, entirely at the discretion of the Trustees.
Elisabeth Henrietta Van den Bergh (1904-1983) was the daughter of Henry Van den Bergh and Henrietta Spanjaard. Unfortunately, information about her is limited to the extent that not much more is available online about her than that she married Stephen Wentworh Roskill in 1930 and then died aged 79 in 1984.
After my interaction with Nancy Saul from the Arts Fund, I was provided with the above documentation surrounding the bequest and its path to Durham. Whilst some of the notes and letters were a little hard to read, I found the conversation a fascinating insight into how art deals like this are made. For a set of nine bowls the course of transaction seemed far shorter than I assumed it would be so it taught me a lot about the nature of deals in the art world.
Sources:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van_den_Bergh-308
https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=101846
This merged with Lever Brothers to become Unilever in 1929. He because a member of the Executive Committee of the National Art Collections Fund (q.v.) in the 1910s-1920s. He was a major donor, throughout the National Art Collections Fund, to most Departments of the British Museum and of Dutch tiles to the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The National Art Collections Fund hold an extract of his will, which states that his children (Col Donald Van den Bergh, d. 1949; Duncan Van den Bergh, Mrs. S. Roskill, d. 1983; and Mrs Dorrit Talbot) were to draw lots for his art works, which would then be held by that child for life and following their death, to be distributed by the Trustees of the Van den Bergh Family Trust to the National Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A, the Tate and the Art Fund, entirely at the discretion of the Trustees.
Elisabeth Henrietta Van den Bergh (1904-1983) was the daughter of Henry Van den Bergh and Henrietta Spanjaard. Unfortunately, information about her is limited to the extent that not much more is available online about her than that she married Stephen Wentworh Roskill in 1930 and then died aged 79 in 1984.
After my interaction with Nancy Saul from the Arts Fund, I was provided with the above documentation surrounding the bequest and its path to Durham. Whilst some of the notes and letters were a little hard to read, I found the conversation a fascinating insight into how art deals like this are made. For a set of nine bowls the course of transaction seemed far shorter than I assumed it would be so it taught me a lot about the nature of deals in the art world.
Sources:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Van_den_Bergh-308
https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=101846
Post Comment
Post a Comment