Matisse, who survived the war sheltering in the south of France, sold the 1939 work shortly after its completion to a Parisian dealer named Paul Rosenberg, a Jewish French art dealer operating in Paris throughout the early 20th century.
From there, the painting’s future should have been business as usual: Daisies would have been exhibited at Rosenberg’s gallery at 21 rue la Boétie, before being sold to its next owner––potentially a private collector or an international museum. The circumstances of the war, however, changed the painting’s fate, setting it on a collision course with the Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and putting it in danger of being lost to the Nazi art-looting machine.
Rosenberg’s gallery was renowned for its association with some of the leading minds of Impressionist and Modern painting: Picasso, Braque, Léger, and Matisse, to name a few. Rosenberg’s clients included some of Europe and America’s most well-known collectors and museums––the Art Institute of Chicago included, having made its first purchase from Rosenberg in 1924.
Paul Rosenberg standing beside Matisse’s Yellow Odalisque (1937)
By September 1940, Rosenberg’s hard-won reputation as one of the preeminent dealers of French painting saw him placed directly in the crosshairs of the Nazi art-looting operation called the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR). The ERR was named for an altogether different Rosenberg: Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, who was unrelated to the Parisian art dealer.
During the summer of 1940, Paul Rosenberg’s gallery was seized by the ERR. Along with his books, furniture, and personal property, his paintings were transported through Paris to the designated repository for plundered goods located at the Jeu de Paume museum. Here, objects were inventoried and evaluated for both their quality and use to the German Reich, with the most prestigious and valuable objects sent directly to Hitler for his planned museum in Linz, Austria.
Looted artworks at the Jeu de Paume
Hitler’s sole visit to Paris occurred on June 28, 1940, almost four months prior to the ERR’s occupation of the Jeu de Paume. As a result, he never visited the repository, unlike Hermann Göring, who was well-known across occupied Europe for his ranging and almost indiscriminate desire for collecting art, a desire that was ultimately indulged at the expense of countless Jewish collectors and dealers. Between November 1940 and November 1942, Göring visited the Jeu de Paume twenty times. He treated the repository like his personal warehouse, with Jeu de Paume employees arranging a selection of premium art for Göring’s consideration in advance of these visits.
On one of his visits to the Jeu de Paume, Göring came into direct contact with Matisse’s Daisies, now held hostage less than a mile from Paul Rosenberg’s former gallery, which had been converted into the Nazi Office of Information and Research on Jewish Affairs. In a rare coincidence, a photographer captured this moment.
Bruno Lohse, a German art historian turned Nazi art dealer, holds up two Matisse paintings, including Daisies, for Hermann Göring’s appraisal.
To learn more about the context behind this photograph, it’s necessary to go back to the archival sources themselves. Each object that passed through the Jeu de Paume was measured, described, and recorded on an index card. On the index card, we can see that the work was named “Komposition [Daisies],” and that it was an oil on canvas with a “light table with a bouquet of star flowers in a glass and jug next to it. Figure sitting on the left, female nude stretching above.” The card also records an inventory number: Rosenberg-Bernstein / Bordeaux 30. This indicates that the object was seized from Paul Rosenberg’s Bordeaux property, to which he had initially fled along with some of his paintings immediately following the start of the Nazi occupation of France in June 1940.
Jeu de Paume index card for Daisies, listed here as Komposition
The available records for wartime transactions involving the Jeu de Paume can sometimes be difficult to follow due to the convoluted exchanges and trades that often occurred, particularly in transactions involving Göring. Daisies went on to be the subject of a series of complex exchanges through which the ERR and Göring could acquire paintings viewed as more desirable for the Nazi occupiers.
We know that Daisies was featured in one such exchange due to its mention in another source: Die Kunstsammlung Hermann Göring (the Hermann Göring Collection). The database, available since 2012, aims to record all objects purchased, taken, or used in exchanges by Göring from confiscated collections.
Rosenberg successfully emigrated to New York in September 1940, where he reestablished his gallery and continued his business throughout the war years. He had cultivated relationships with museum directors and collectors across the country long before World War II, including with then-Art Institute director Daniel Catton Rich, and now sought to leverage these connections to rebuild his business and life in New York.
Daniel Catton Rich and the Art Institute of Chicago
Daniel Catton Rich, former director of the Art Institute, about 1945
Checklist for the exhibition 20th Century French Paintings, Paul Rosenberg Collection, Jan 30 – Mar 2, 1941.
Rosenberg had hoped to exhibit works from his collection and gallery stock at the Art Institute, believing Chicago to be an important market for the introduction of modern painting in America. This goal was achieved when the show 20th Century French Paintings, Paul Rosenberg Collection ran from January 30 until March 2, 1941; in what surely must have been a situation of mixed emotions, the long sought-after show was only possible while the majority of Rosenberg’s gallery stock remained inaccessible in Nazi-occupied Paris. In one particularly notable episode, Rosenberg’s own son, Alexandre, then fighting for the French Resistance, located his father’s confiscated paintings on a train headed for Germany in August 1944.
Such fateful discoveries marked the final days of the Second World War, setting the stage for the Allied efforts to recover and restitute looted property in the following years. Although the ERR’s captured documentation was crucial in facilitating these efforts, it was Rosenberg’s own memories and advocacy that proved indispensable when searching for his lost property.
Officer James Rorimer supervises U.S. soldiers recovering looted paintings from Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany during World War II, April–May, 1945
Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA). National Archives, Washington DC
Daisies was returned to Paul Rosenberg, then living in New York, by November 1, 1945. The work was one of three objects taken from Rosenberg’s collection that, following their postwar restitution to the dealer, were purchased by the Art Institute: Girl in Yellow and Blue with Guitar by Matisse, On the Terrace of a Hotel in Bordighera by Renoir, and of course, Daisies.
Three restituted works that found a home at the Art Institute
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Rosenberg is a crucial figure in the history of the Art Institute. The number of masterpieces acquired from him before, during, and after World War II reflects his outsized influence on the trajectory and quality of the collection. Audience favorites by Morisot, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cezanne, Picasso, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, and Matisse, are now on view at the Art Institute, allowing our audiences to connect with Rosenberg and his story.
—Meadhbh Ginnane, senior research associate, Provenance Research
Learn More
For more information about this artwork and the research conducted, visit our online catalogue: Matisse Paintings, Works on Paper, Sculpture, and Textiles at the Art Institute of Chicago.
