Missing Pieces: Gap and Omission in the Mid-Twentieth-Century Provenance of Heemskerck’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt
An immunity from a seizure application in 2024 provided an opportunity to revisit the provenance of Maarten van Heemskerck’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Previous research indicated that the painting belonged to a collector in Switzerland at some point between 1934 and 1952. The life circumstances of this collector, when and where he acquired the canvas, and to whom and when it was passed on were never ascertained. However, newly available resources, such as annotated auction and exhibition catalogues, provided the evidence to close gaps and shut down the likelihood of a looted history. Equally important, the collector in question turned out to be the husband of the actual purchaser, who hadn’t appeared previously in the provenance. This case study demonstrates the importance of continual review of provenances in light of new sources. It also raises the issue of the marginalization of women in ownership histories, often submerged into their husband’s identity or dropped altogether.

Margaret Doyle

National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Margaret Doyle studied art history with an emphasis on Germany at the University of Pennsylvania (BA) and the Graduate Center, City University of New York (PhD). In 2000 she was appointed the first dedicated Nazi-era provenance researcher at the Smithsonian Institution. As deputy head and associate curator of exhibition programs at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., she worked primarily on exhibitions of Northern European art. Since 2020 she has served as the museum’s provenance expert and head of its curatorial records department, which catalogues paintings and sculptures and oversees object research files available to staff and outside researchers for consultation.