Art Dealers

Galerie Matthiesen was one of Berlin’s leading art dealerships during the interwar period. The firm was founded in 1923 by the German-Jewish art dealer Franz Zatzenstein-Matthiesen (1897–1963), who later used the name Francis M. Matthiesen in England. The gallery dealt both in Old Masters and in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French art, and rapidly developed…

Schaeffer Galleries was one of the internationally respected art dealerships specializing in Old Masters for much of the twentieth century. The firm was founded in Berlin in 1925 by the art historian Dr Hanns Schaeffer (1886–1967) and his wife Kate Born Schaeffer (1898–2000). Hanns Schaeffer had already been active as a gallery owner in Berlin…

Kunsthaus Malmedé was a well-established art and antiques dealership in Cologne, specializing among other things in Old Master paintings. The business was founded in 1932 by Arthur Malmedé and was the direct successor to Kunsthandlung Malmedé & Geissendörfer, a firm established in Cologne around 1900.[1] Its predecessor, Malmedé & Geissendörfer, was dissolved at the end…

Galerie Ehrhardt & Co. was among the Berlin art dealerships specializing in Old Masters during the 1920s and early 1930s. The firm was run by Martin Ehrhardt and Heinrich Grünwald and was located at Lennéstraße 6a in Berlin. Heinrich Grünwald was a co-owner of the business and had a background of his own as an…

The art dealership of Fritz Schleif was active in Berlin from at least the late 1920s and specialized in Old Master paintings. Today, his name appears primarily in provenance records, historical art journals, and post-war archival documents. The RKD records him as the owner of a painting as early as 1929, while advertisements confirm his…

The origins of Rosenberg & Stiebel can be traced to nineteenth-century Frankfurt am Main. There, Jakob Rosenbaum began dealing in art and antiques around 1860, initially focusing primarily on porcelain, ceramics, and works of medieval and Renaissance art.[1] Under Jakob’s son Isaak Rosenbaum, the emphasis increasingly shifted toward Old Master paintings. As Isaak had no…

The art and antiques dealership J. & S. Goldschmidt was among the leading German art firms of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The business originated in Frankfurt am Main, where the brothers Jacob and Selig Goldschmidt began dealing in old books, Judaica and works of art in the mid-nineteenth century, probably as early…

The Spanish Art Gallery was one of the more prominent art and antiques dealerships operating in London during the first half of the twentieth century. The business was founded by Lionel Harris (1852–1943), who expanded from the trade in jewellery and precious stones into art and antiques. The firm is documented under the name The…

Galerie Robert Finck was one of the established Brussels art dealerships specializing in Old Masters during the second half of the twentieth century. From the 1950s onward, Robert Finck’s name appears regularly in the provenance histories of Dutch and Flemish paintings. The gallery remained active for several decades and focused particularly on paintings from the…

Galerie K. Van de Ven in Vilvoorde specialized for several decades in Belgian painting of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Within this field, the emphasis was on high-quality, traditionally painted works: landscapes, animal subjects, and paintings by artists collected particularly on the Belgian, Dutch, and French markets. The gallery was based at Château d’Huyenoven…