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 since 1921.[1]
Initially, the gallery focused strongly on Dutch and Flemish painting. Its scope later expanded to include paintings and drawings from virtually all major European schools. Works by artists such as Botticelli, Lucas Cranach, Rubens, Frans Hals, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt passed through Schaeffer’s hands.[1]
From Berlin to New York
In addition to Berlin, Hanns Schaeffer operated galleries for a time in London and San Francisco. Following the emigration of Hanns and Kate Schaeffer to the United States, a New York branch was established in 1936. The Berlin gallery remained active until 1939. In New York, Schaeffer Galleries subsequently developed into an important link between the European art trade and American collectors and museums.[1][2]
From 1936 onward, Schaeffer also worked closely with the Dutch art dealership Firma D. Katz in Dieren. During the war years, paintings from Katz were sent on consignment to Schaeffer in New York for the American market. The relationship between the two firms continued after the war.[1]
Old Masters and connoisseurship
Schaeffer Galleries distinguished itself not only through the quality of the works it offered, but also through its art-historical approach to the trade. Between 1927 and 1950, Hanns and Kate Schaeffer organized approximately twenty exhibitions in Berlin and New York. Several of these were accompanied by scholarly catalogues.[1]
The gallery maintained close contacts with leading art historians and museum curators. Its correspondence includes names such as Max J. Friedländer, Ludwig Burchard, Julius Held, Horst Gerson, Erwin Panofsky, Seymour Slive and Federico Zeri. Museums in the United States, Canada and Europe were also among its clients.[1]
The reputation of the firm is also reflected in the museum collections that now house works once handled by the gallery. These include Correggio’s Salvator Mundi, now in the National Gallery of Art, and Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing A Bear Walking, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[1][3]
Kate Schaeffer and the continuation of the gallery
Following Hanns Schaeffer’s death in 1967, Kate Schaeffer became the owner and president of the gallery. She continued the business for more than thirty years. Schaeffer Galleries was dissolved only after her death in 2000.[1]
An exceptional art-dealer archive
Schaeffer Galleries is particularly important for provenance research today because a substantial part of the firm’s business archive has survived. The largest group of records is held by the Getty Research Institute and documents the gallery’s activities from the 1920s into the late 1980s.[1]
The archive contains approximately 2,500 study photographs of works of art handled by the gallery, supplemented by around one thousand black-and-white negatives. For many works, information survives concerning attribution, provenance, acquisition, sale and prices. The archive also includes card indexes, cash books, exhibition lists and extensive correspondence with collectors, museums, art historians, conservators and other dealers.[1]
The Frick Collection and the Archives of American Art also hold separate archival collections relating to Schaeffer Galleries. As a result, the trading history of the firm can be reconstructed in considerably greater detail than that of many other twentieth-century art dealerships.[2][4]
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Footnotes
[1] Getty Research Institute, Schaeffer Galleries records, 1907–1988, bulk 1925–1980, acc. no. 910148; biographical history and inventory of the business archive.
[2] Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Schaeffer Galleries records, ca. 1921–1982; history of the Berlin and New York galleries.
[3] Getty Research Institute, Schaeffer Galleries records; overview of important works handled by the firm, including works by Botticelli, Cranach, Correggio, Rubens, Frans Hals, Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.
[4] The Frick Collection, Frick Art Research Library Archives, Schaeffer Galleries Records, MS.016; archive concerning the business operations and trading activities of Hanns and Kate Schaeffer.