Inventory number: SK-A-3889

Item category: Paintings

Item name:

Institution: Rijksmuseum

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The provenance of the painting is uncertain, since how and when it passed from the possession of the Hohenzollern family and came to belong to Reinheldt art gallery in Berlin is not known.

This painting was commissioned by the Orange family as a gift for Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, uncle and guardian of the prince. It is unclear whether the work was still in the Hohenzollern palace in 1945, or whether it was part of the Alexandra Zubkow collection (and possible her heirs). Zubkow's heirs may later have lived in palaces in Potsdam and Berlin, where much was stolen in the war years. Ter Kuile (1976) states that the painting was at Königlisches Schloss, Berlin, Stadtschloss, Potsdam until c. 1945. He links these locations with the property of the Hohenzollerns. Yet the family lost the building after the First World War. So the location and owner do not match. The building was bombed in 1945 and in 1950 the ruin was cleared. There is some doubt regarding the claim of Alexandra Zubkow, née Princess Victoria of Prussia (1866-1929), to be the owner, since the information is based on an inconclusive remark by the Berlin art dealer Curt Reinheldt. Nevertheless, she is a Hohenzollern and she did live in the palace. If the painting was still in Alexandra Zubkow's collection after the First World War, it was probably auctioned in or after 1929, since she was reduced to penury in her final years. Based on what is currently known of the provenance, the work may well have been stolen. It is unclear whether Reinheldt bought it directly from Zubkow, or that a longer string of transactions connected the two.