Inventory number: S1977-004

Item category: Paintings

Item name:

Institution: Fries Museum

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Little is known about the Nicoll collection, to which this painting belonged before it was acquired by Dienststelle Mühlmann. It is unclear who Nicoll was and from whom Nicoll acquired the work.

Dr Kajetan Mühlmann, from whom the department derived its name, was the first person appointed by the German regime to buy up art in the Netherlands. He arrived in The Hague on 15 May 1940 and was commissioned by Rijkscommissaris Seys-Inquart to find and purchase art. Informants provided information about valuable art privately owned by Jews. His department bought up thousands of paintings and objects, sometimes under duress, and sold them on. Purchasers included leading Nazis, such as Hitler and Göring, as well as other German collectors, auction houses and museums. Mühlmann acquired this painting from a certain Nicoll. The provenance 'Nicoll, Paris' may refer to Madame Jaremtchenko (the report of Mühlmann's hearings after the war specifically states 'called Nicole'), secretary to Joseph Mühlmann (Kajetan's stepbrother) who had an office in a hotel in Paris.