Alphonse Kann

Alphonse Kann (14 March 1870cite web | url = http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~randols/PS09/PS09_347.HTM | title = Alphonse Kann at Ancestry.com | accessdate = 2008-08-09 | author = | publisher = Ancestry.com] – 1948) was a prominent French art collector of Jewish heritage. He was a childhood playmate and adult friend of the writer Marcel Proust, who incorporated several of Kann's features into the character Charles Swann (in "Swann in Love"). [Feliciano, Hector. "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Art", Basic Books, 1997, p. 111. ISBN 0465041949]

The name Kann, written with double "nn", was said in Paris to be "le plus chic du chic". [Feliciano, Hector. "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Art", Basic Books, 1997, p. 111. ISBN 0465041949] Known for his discerning taste and shrewd collecting instincts, Kann shocked the art world in 1927 by auctioning off most of his Old Master collection (including works by Bruegel, Cimabue, Fragonard, Pollaiuolo, Rubens and Tintoretto) in order to concentrate on the acquisition of 19th century and modern art, which he collected vigorously over the following decade.

Kann left France for England in 1938 without making an inventory of his eclectic art collection, which was kept in a St.-Germain-en-Laye mansion and subsequently looted in October 1940 by Nazi occupiers.cite news | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/arts/design/26ridi.html?pagewanted=print| title = Göring, Rembrandt and the Little Black Book | accessdate = 2008-08-09 | date = 1996-03-26 | publisher = New York Times|first=Alan|last=Riding] cite news | url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C06E7DC1730F930A3575AC0A961958260| title = Collector's Family Tries to Illuminate the Past of Manuscripts in France | accessdate = 2008-08-09 | date = 1997-09-03 | publisher = New York Times|first=Alan|last=Riding] Kann recovered only a small fraction of his large collection before his death in England in 1948. Decades later, a number of paintings from Kann's collection were discovered in prominent European and U.S. museums.

In the 1990s, eight antique manuscripts once owned by Kann turned up the vaults of Wildenstein & Company, still bearing the distinctive Nazi catalog numbers ("KA 879" to "KA 886", in red pencil) likely made by Bruno Lohse [Feliciano, Hector. "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Art", Basic Books, 1997, p. 110. ISBN 0465041949] as he processed the Kann collection in the Jeu de Paume. [Feliciano, Hector. "The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Art", Basic Books, 1997, p. 188, pp. 185-189 inclusive. ISBN 0465041949] The discovery of the missing manuscripts prompted a lawsuit by Kann's heirs against Wildenstein & Company.

References