Rijksmuseum acquires four salt cellars by silversmith Johannes Lutma, following restitution process

Johannes Lutma

Johannes Lutma (1584-1669) was Amsterdam’s foremost silversmith in the 17th century. He was a contemporary and friend of Rembrandt, who etched a portrait of him, and Joost van den Vondel and other Dutch poets also praised him in their work. The four salt cellars are undisputed masterpieces in his oeuvre, very little of which has survived to the present day. These objects were the first in which Lutma combined the ornamental auricular style with a classical formal idiom. In 1638, Lutma commissioned Amsterdam artist Jacob Adriaensz Backer to paint portraits of himself and his wife Sara de Bie. The fact that the silversmith chose to be shown next an early version of these cellars strongly suggests that he regarded them as breakthrough works. The portraits are also held in the Rijksmuseum collection, and they will be displayed with the two pairs of salt cellars, which Lutma made in 1639 and 1643.

Ensemble

From a historical and art-historical perspective, it is of major significance that Lutma probably designed a large ensemble of objects very early in his career and later produced the constituent elements – including the four salt cellars – in phases over the course of many years. The identical style used for the feet unifies the ensemble, while differences of detailing in the human figures and salt dishes give the two pairs distinct identities. The constituent elements of the very few other surviving ensembles of this kind from the first half of the 17th century are far less well-matched. Costly cellars of this kind would stand on the tables for important banquets given by wealthy art lovers, or at the headquarters of citizen militias or the navy, for example.

Emma en Henry Budge

Before the Second World War, the four salt cellars were owned by Emma Budge (1852-1937) and Henry Budge (1840-1928), a Jewish couple from Hamburg. Emma and her businessman and banker husband accumulated an extensive art collection. They also contributed to charities and the founding of the University of Frankfurt.

Forced sale

Following the death of Emma Budge in 1937, her property was sold off at Paul Graupe’s ‘aryanised’ auction house in Berlin. The proceeds of the sale were confiscated by the German Nazi party, the NSDAP, rather than being passed on to Budge’s heirs. It is believed that the four salt cellars were bought by a German dealer named Greatzer, about whom little else is known. These objects eventually found their way into the famous collection of silver belonging to W.J.R. Dreesmann. In 1960, central government and the City of Amsterdam acquired the four salt cellars at an auction of the Dreesman collection; two went on display in the Rijksmuseum and two in the Amsterdam Museum.

Investigation

An investigation carried out by the Amsterdam Museum concluded in 2013 that the two salt cellars in its collection were of suspicious origin. This prompted the Rijksmuseum to initiate an investigation into the two salt cellars in its own collection. A year later, these objects were identified as suspicious on the websites of both the Rijksmuseum and the Museums Association. In 2014, restitutions committees in various countries designated the 1937 auction of Emma Budge’s estate as involuntary. This led to the return to Budge’s descendants of silver, porcelain, tapestries and busts by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the German food conglomerate Dr. Oetker. The Dutch Restitutions Committee arrived at the same conclusion in 2018, leading to the return of the bronze sculpture of Moses attributed to Alessandro Vittoria from the collection of Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle.

Claim

Following the publication in 2018 of the conclusions of the Restitutions Committee, the descendants of Emma Budge submitted a claim for the two salt cellars in the Rijksmuseum collection, the two salt cellars in the Amsterdam Museum collection, and two objects in the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague. On 16 November 2022, the Restitutions Committee issued its recommendation that these objects be returned to Budge’s descendants. In the case of the salt cellars held by the Amsterdam Museum, the recommendations were binding. The State Secretary for Culture and Media complied with the recommendations, and on 5 December 2022 decided also to return the Rijksmuseum salt cellars to the descendants. On 12 May 2023, the Dutch state and the City of Amsterdam returned the objects to the claimants. That same day, the heirs sold all four salt cellars to the Rijksmuseum. On 6 September 2023 the complete ensemble will go on display at the Rijksmuseum, which will continue to draw attention to both the art-historical importance of the objects and the story surrounding their provenance and restitution.

Provenance research at the Rijksmuseum

A team of five specialists at the Rijksmuseum has, since 2012, been conducting research into the ownership history of objects suspected of having been involuntarily removed from Jewish possession under pressure of Nazi persecution. The aim of the research is to uncover instances of theft, confiscation and sale under duress from the Nazi regime and make them public as soon as possible. We also want the human stories and the family histories that emerge from this research to be told in the museum and to be given their rightful place in the chronicle of the Netherlands’ national history.

Purchased with the support of the Friends Lottery, the Mondriaan Fund, the Rembrandt Association (thanks in part to its Themed Fund for Silver), and through the Rijksmuseum Fonds: the Ernst Nijkerk Fonds, the Ton en Judy van Heuzen-Dijksma Fonds, the legacy of Mr H. de Looper, and a private donor.

The Rijksmuseum is grateful for all the forms of support it receives. Government funding, contributions from the business sector and funding organisations, as well as gifts, bequests and Friends are all of vital importance to the Rijksmuseum.