A Collector’s Odyssey
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Christel H. Force
About this book
A Collector’s Odyssey presents a case of agency and moxie in the face of ruthless Nazi persecution and organized plunder. It reconstructs the untold story of wartime refugee Marie-Anne von/de Goldschmidt-Rothschild and ascertains the contents and trajectory of her art collection. Yet it is less about provenance, or transfers of ownership, than about one collector’s resistance to relinquishing ownership. Beginning with the collection’s inception in Berlin and spanning two World Wars, it traces artworks secretly relocated to Paris, haltingly transported to the U.S., exhibited there, repatriated, then quietly dispersed. Her in-laws’ respective cases of despoliation and exile further highlight what Jewish collectors faced in Nazi Germany. This book restores their stories to memory, countering the Reich's intended erasure.
- Reconstructs the untold story of the Jewish-born Baroness Marie-Anne von/de Goldschmidt-Rothschild, with a special focus on the fate of her art collection during the Nazi era
- Tells the saga of a German Jewish family, crushed by systematic persecution and dispossession in the 1930s-1940s
- Reveals the Nazi-era provenance of the (mostly) Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artworks in the collection of Marie-Anne von/de Goldschmidt-Rothschild
Author / Editor information
Christel H. Force, PhD, is an independent scholar, formerly associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Her recent publications include "Otto Feldmann" in Les artistes et leurs galeries (2020); Pioneers of the Global Art Market (2020); The Brummer Galleries (2023); "Etienne Bignou" in The Art Market and The Museum (2025).
Anna-Carolin Augustin,PhD, is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C. Her expertise is modern German-Jewish history, Judaica, and provenance. Her publications include Berliner Kunstmatronage (2018) on women collectors around 1900, articles in academic journals, and the forthcoming Jewish Relics.
Katharina Weiler,PhD, is curator for European Applied Arts at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. Her expertise is decorative arts and provenance. She curated the museum’s exhibition The Collection of Maximilian von Goldschmidt-Rothschild (2023), co-authored its catalog, and published extensively onthe subject.
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