CASE STUDY863

Georges de Batz.
The Mysterious Case of an Art Collector Extraordinary Found by Examination of a Painting
by Niccolo Caldararo

Abstract

Cultural objects appear in our museums as the result of the efforts of particular individuals who decide to collect certain kinds of objects for a variety of personal reasons. As a cultural trait we find collections in many different cultures, civilizations and different periods of history. One example is the Aztec collections mentioned by many of the Spanish at the time of their contact with Native American societies and summarized by Pietro de Marytr in the early 16th century.
This paper investigates two mysteries; one describes the personal journey of one modern collector, whose contributions to two major American museums were substantial, but whose history is little known especially regarding his demise and the dispersal of his personal fortune; the other mystery surrounds a huge painting he possessed and its examination.

Part I: The Nature of the Collector

The story of Georges de Batz, accomplished collector and dealer in fine arts, encompasses two mysteries, one which is about his fortune and another which tells the tale of the authenticity of a painting he possessed at his death.
I first met Georges de Batz (Figure 1) in early 1979 when I accompanied Achenbach Foundation Assistant Curator Maxine Rosston to his home on Polk Street in San Francisco. It was not the usual duty for a museum professional. I was to provide moral support and act as that kind of convenient person who can produce the reminder that it is time to leave. This was really the most essential part of my role as I was to learn later, since Mr. de Batz was neither threatening nor formidable. He was, simply, very talkative and very eccentric. Rather "San Francisco" in many ways.

I worked in the Achenbach Foundation with the Western Regional Paper Conservation Laboratory and Painting Conservation Departments of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. The latter Department was really made up of Ms. Terri Picante and myself at the time. Mostly we worked at the De Young Museum as the studio at the Legion of Honor was only the size of a large dining room.

It was so small we often had to take large paintings into the hallway to turn them around or over to be able to work on the verso or recto. However, my museum duties did not qualify me for my task that day. Frankly, I was chosen mainly due to the fact that I was a young man and being such I would function as a distraction for the purpose of Mrs. Rosston's visit. Achenbach Foundation Director-in-Charge, Robert Johnson had agreed with Ms. Rosston that she should not go to Mr. de Batz' apartment without a "second". Her mission was to deliver a check to de Batz, an installment payment for the part purchase and part donation of his rather lavish, but at the same time, curious and frustrating collection of prints and drawings. This arrangement had been negotiated some years before by then Museum Director Mr. Thomas Carr Howe and its arrival was as rewarding a treasure as its owner was an enigma.

I could not conceive that my brief meeting with this strange but brilliant little man that day would connect with a grand mystery related to another fabulous work of art of which he was the central character. For several years I had occasionally seen Mr. de Batz in the Achenbach speaking with Mrs. Rosston and Mr. Johnson.
This was always an animated affair, either de Batz was upset and angry or happy and almost delirious. His range of mood was both unexpected and unnerving. As he was a small man, with a robust and fleshy body, his intensity was a surprise, yet since he spoke French as his native tongue his English became unintelligible as his ardor increased. One was left with a great deal of consternation at how to regard and respond to his distress or joy.

Mr. de Batz had been a collector known to curators and dealers from coast to coast in America. His achievements live on in both the Achenbach Foundation and in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Asian Art collection, which were first displayed at the Museum in Boston in 1953. Both de Batz' connoisseurship and his generosity are reflected in his museum donations. He was as great a mystery as his collections were rich. According to art historian Allen E.J. Carr, de Batz' father had also been a collector and dealer of fine art in France. In the preface to the Boston MFA catalogue of the de Batz collection [1], Curator George Boas tells us that Georges de Batz came to the U.S. in the autumn of 1939 on the last ship leaving France as the Second World War began. Georges arrived with his baggage filled with drawings. From the beginning of his arrival he impressed all he met with a wonder for things, from art to "Christmas tree ornaments from Woolworths". His taste was of such developed quality that friends and colleagues soon recognized the virtuoso that he was, which was certainly remarkable for how deeply moved he was by every purchase.
His home was considered a private museum by collector and scholar and was so renowned that a photograph of a part of the interior was included in the Boston catalogue. From Shang bronzes to Rembrandt drawings, his apartment was seen as a most special creation of a rather rare character.

Yet, if we look for other images of that character, of personal elements of his life and history, we are defeated. His abilities are legion in regard to the arts and we are told that Johns Hopkins University produced several exhibitions (1940- 1942) organized by de Batz of Persian manuscripts, old silver, glass, jewelry, textiles, miniatures and paintings. His activities aided the education of students from 1939 to 1942 by providing the most exquisite experiences of art and beauty; demonstrations with examples of encounters he had had with artists, musicians, etc. followed by discussions or lectures of the most lively nature. He organized a catalogue of the art of Vincent van Gogh in aid of the American and Dutch war relief at Wildenstein in 1943 and wrote a number of catalogues for other exhibitions at Johns Hopkins and Wildenstein at the end of the Second World War. But despite all this, we know little of the man himself.

The time that I visited his apartment in San Francisco with Mrs. Rosston his garrulous nature exposed me to a variety of rich vignettes of famous people – artists, collectors, military generals, poets, the rich; and within these tales would be found the lesson of his great "finds". A Michelangelo here, a Chasseriau there, and so on. This was the stock in trade of his conversation, as I recall from his visits to the Achenbach and from the comments of others concerning their meetings with him.
His apartment was luxuriously decorated but a bit crowded and rather cluttered with curios, artifacts, books, papers and magazines pilled about here and there on chairs, tables and the floor. Still, there seemed to be order and not chaos as he produced objects and documents from amid these mounds at will to illustrate some point or story.

It was common knowledge around the Museum that de Batz had been a friend of former Achenbach Director E. Gunter Troche. Former Achenbach Curator Fenton Kastner and former Asian Art Museum Conservator, Alex Penkovic often spoke of their association and how this friendship between collector and Director had involved both shining lights of exhibitions and art for the Museums, and shadows of the Second World War, including trips to Argentina and Uruguay. Darker recollections were made about earlier acquaintances in Europe before the Second World War. It was rumored that Troche had come to the USA from South America where he had been a dealer of fine art. His resumé lacked a certain precision during the period of the Second World War in Germany and after, and encouraged some rumors and speculation. But this element of the fragmented history and mystery of the life of Georges de Batz did not become important until I was asked to look at huge painting more than a decade later owned by Mr. Herbert Hoover of San Francisco.

Mr. Hoover is a successful dealer and appraiser of fine art and once owned a commercial art gallery in San Francisco. He is also the author of a book on the art scene in San Francisco in the 1980s. In the mid 1990s I conserved a number of paintings for Mr. Hoover. One day Mr. Hoover called me to come and examine a large canvas he had purchased in the 1980s which had suffered a blow to the surface (Figure 2).

This was a large figurative work of a seated man, painted on an absorbent ground, typical of paintings produced in Europe by a number of painters around the turn of the 20th century and into the 20s and 30s. Mr. Hoover had purchased the painting at an auction held at Butterfields of de Batz' estate. It had been sold as a rug, unframed and folded several times. But when he opened it up, he saw it was a painting. At that time, the late 1980s, he had it framed. He later purchased a Germain Seligman monograph on the French artist, Roger de la Fresnaye. The book had belonged to de Batz and contained the original dedication from Seligman to de Batz as well as many letters from Seligman to de Batz relating friendly and warm correspondence (Figure 3, see online Appendix).

In order to conserve the painting I needed information about the absorbent ground, pigments and the working method of the artist. Such analytical work is not thought to be always necessary in conservation, but is however very helpful, if not crucial, and in this case, it was important since understanding the ground was essential to the conservation of the work. Mr. Hoover thought that the painting might be by de la Fresnaye, as the catalogue contained a number of images similar to that in the painting and the technique seemed quite similar. I took samples of the pigment from the painting and sent them to Walter McCrone, an international forensic scientist and expert on pigments and grounds. He compared the pigment from the Hoover painting to samples sent from museums which owned other de la Fresnaye paintings. The pigments were so similar and the grounds as well, that McCrone concluded that the Hoover painting was produced by the same artist using the same palette (see report, Figure 4).

There was a nagging question about the painting that bothered me. It was not listed in the monograph by Seligman [2] and although Seligman stated in the text that it was not complete, it seemed strange that someone as familiar with Seligman as de Batz would possess a major work by the artist and not share it with his friend so it might be included in the artist’s anthology. I contacted the Boston MFA to find out if any personal papers or other information on de Batz were available. None were, and they surveyed local collectors for me to no avail. Mr. Hoover did the same at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, but nothing was found.

Dr. Catherine C. Bock-Weiss of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who had written on de la Fresnaye considered the painting a possible work by the artist, but could offer no information on de Batz or Seligman. She speculated that de la Fresnaye had been involved in a number of salons and performances. He was known to have been a friend of artist Marie Laurencin who was active in the production of drawings for the Ballets Russes.

This association is also mentioned by Seligman [2]. I had extensive conversations with Nancy Van Norman Baer about Laurencin's work in the 1980s and recognized that the materials often used in this setting bore a similarity to the Hoover painting. For example, the canvas fiber of the Picasso "Rideau…" in the Pompidu Center in Paris, which I have seen, is the same. Bock-Weiss suggested I speak to a Mr. Robert M. Murdock who had interviewed Seligman and had done some research on de la Fresnaye. Mr. Murdock was helpful, contacting local collectors for information on de Batz, but could not enlighten us either about the painting or the Seligman/de Batz relationship. While he had met Seligman, he did not have access to his papers. Attempts to contact the family were also not successful. He suggested Dr. Kenneth Silver at New York University, who had written about de la Fresnaye [3].

I contacted Dr. Silver who was interested in helping and thought we might meet when I examined a painting by de la Fresnaye at the The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. We were disappointed when we viewed the painting however, as it had been lined and coated with a heavy varnish. Nevertheless, Dr. Silver contributed some advice concerning both the Selgiman/de Batz link and the nature of the Hoover painting. A picture of the artist and the complication of his life came into focus as a factor in the fate of the painting. We had known that de la Fresnaye had been a war hero in France after the First World War, and that his fame was doubled by the tragic wounds he had received which prematurely ended his life and career. Unexpectedly, however, Silver related that de la Fresnaye was homosexual and that this was entwined with the family’s regard for him and his public assessment. A relative had controlled the sale of his work after the war and then after his death. Paintings and other works had been distributed to friends and lovers and there was a marked coolness between family and de la Fresnaye’s friends. Silver and Murdock both suggested that access to work might have been limited to Seligman and that de Batz, who was also of the same sexual inclination may have had access to other sources not available to the family or to Seligman. What might also have been true, according to Silver, was that the Hoover painting may have been the property of families which were dispossessed by the Nazis. Thus we had at least two explanations of why the painting would not appear in the Seligman book; firstly that it had been given to a lover or friend renounced by the family and unavailable to Seligman when he wrote the book, and secondly that it had been seized by the Nazis and was illegal contraband which de Batz had somehow acquired.

It still seemed as if de Batz had no past at all, we could find little about the man as he lived except for his passion of collecting art and donating to the public. So we decided to seek him posthumously. We went to the auction house, Butterfield's for clues. Here we came to another dead end. Their records were only kept for five years and then destroyed. So we went to the probate court to find what might have been the disposition of his property and perhaps his papers. Here again, we were disappointed. The probate court had the files containing his property and the sales, papers filed by this lawyer, Bruce Walkup when de Batz was found unable to care for himself and was removed to a care facility in the early 1980s.

We found the documents created by Walkup for the sale of de Batz's art but nothing that could give us a clear picture of what had been the origin of the painting or its relation to de Batz. To our amazement, we also found another mystery, in the final disposition of the de Batz estate, the last file of the probate was missing. We could not trace where his personal effects went or who received the more than $1 million in proceeds from the sale of his art and property. I called the Walkup office in San Francisco to find that Mr. Walkup had died some years ago. I was able to speak with the woman who had been his secretary. But when I asked about the files for Walkup's work with de Batz she informed me that the office did not have them. She told me to go to the de Batz Foundation. I contacted the Georges de Batz Trust for the Arts, whose only trustee was a Mr. Henry W. Howard, who was quite elderly and seemed confused each time when I spoke to him. I did find out that he did not have any files or personal effects of de Batz.
I asked if there were any publications of the Foundation, or other documentation of the work of the Foundation. He said the Foundation had been only himself and that he had given the money away over the years to art organizations and religious charities, especially those that had programs for children. I was told there were no publications about this giving, and that no records were kept. Mr. Hoover could not believe this report on the Foundation, and so he arranged to meet Mr. Howard. This was delayed several times due to Mr. Howard's illness, but when it took place he found the information was correct. There were no records, the Foundation was nearly out of money and Mr. Howard referred us back to Walkup's office. We contacted the Walkup offices again but were told they had nothing relating to de Batz or the Foundation.

I called a number of arts organizations in San Francisco and a few recalled that they had had visits by an elderly man once in a while who would hand them a check for $10,000 or so. And thus Georges de Batz' life was as much a mystery as the dispersal of his fortune and yet, Mr. Hoover's painting is a masterwork of a man sitting in a chair surveying a world with such interest that one can only imagine the bemused face of de Batz looking out amid the cubist fragments.

1. Introduction

The conservator is often faced with difficult problems presented by paintings. These problems can include multiple layers which lack adhesion, sometimes caused by poor execution by the artists, by inadequate storage conditions, incorrect methodology of application, etc.
Perhaps the problem may reside in determining the original paint from overpainting and attempting to resolve with the curator or owner a balanced treatment which reflects the intent of the artist [4]. Questions of authorship often arise which can only be addressed by reference to the analysis of similar types based on scientific analysis [5]. In these cases the conservator can be asked to join in the art historical or curatorial debate to investigate fakes, forgeries and reproductions [6, 7].
Often, however, even the best efforts are defeated by the ideas of art styles of the time and the development of fashionable tastes that influence the concept of the original [8].
A good example of this is the Shapira Scroll, a scroll made of skin presented to the British Museum and other public and private collections in the last century as an original volume from the ancient libraries of Israel [9]. As Kahle and I described [10], the scroll appeared too new in the context of other scroll fragments from the same period, but when a detailed examination of the state of preservation of these scrolls was put in series and related to the variations in manufacture and how conditions of storage affected ageing, then the condition of the Schapira scroll could be understood and found to be authentic [11]. We will never know, unfortunately, for the Schapira scroll disappeared.

At times our laboratory has been asked to solve relatively simple conservation tasks only to become involved in more elaborate forensic work. One case of this kind is the Hoover painting which was brought to our attention due to distortions in the canvas with a rough and uneven surface. The owner was concerned that the painting appeared to be suffering some deterioration. In this section of this article I will describe our attempt to identify the condition of the painting and to study its materials and method of execution, both essential to understanding the appearance of the painting and its conservation and yet, secondarily, productive in information to the determination of its authenticity.

2. Canvas

A sample of the canvas was taken at the top right area above the strainer on the verso of the painting. Several samples of paint and ground were taken from the verso of the canvas, all pigments were sampled. The canvas sample was compared with the fiber content of several la Fresnaye paintings in American collections.
The Hemp-like fiber of the Hoover painting can be found in the sample from the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which also has a open weave, gauze-like appearance) and it is well known that fibers used for artist's canvas at the turn of this century were quite varied and many contained mixed fibers [12].

This painting is on a wide woven fabric (likely a species of hemp). Fiber comparison was made with samples from several museums (see Table 1). Comparison with standard reference samples [13, 14] indicates hemp. This fiber is found in paintings of the period 1900 to 1940 by a number of painters including, Kirchner, Stat-geschiter (1911), Paul Klee, Uberschach (1937), Ferinand Hodler in his monumental mural scenes at the Zurich Kunsthaus, Jacques Lipchitz in his "Personnage Debout" (1916), Fernand Leger, in "Le reveil-matin" (1914), and his "Feme en rouge et vert" (1914), in Picasso's "Nature Morte" (1922), in Sonia Delaunay's "Prismes electriques" (1914) and Nathalie Gontcharova's "Les porteubes" (1911), and was used in numerous other paintings of the period. However, the specific wide weave of the Hoover canvas is found on a subset of these works, both large and small, but generally they are larger. Interestingly, the Hoover canvas is nearly identical in weave size, fiber color to a large theatrical background by Picasso, "Rideau pour le ballet", "Mercure" (1924) and the already mentioned Hodler mural.

The painting measures approximately 7 feet by 10 and one-half feet, but this may not have been the original size as it has been recently mounted onto a strainer, while holes in the canvas indicate an earlier mount which may have been slightly smaller. These unusual marks and holes may be related to its original use, perhaps in a theatrical installation or ballet piece.

3. Paint and Ground

The pigment appears to be in an oil medium, but rather very flat and brittle like tempera, coated in lower center and central figure areas with a shiny media. The appearance is similar to that described for French paintings of the period that are categorized as painted on "absorbent canvas" [15, 16]. While there was variation in why artists used absorbent canvases and speculation about this by art historians and conservators [17], in general an attitude was present that associated the absorbent canvas with a prohibition against varnishing.

Test results from Harlan Associates for the ground by FT-IR show it to be composed of barium sulfate and lead chromate with calcium carbonate as a minor component. It also contains an ester polymer indicating a natural resin or oil. If it is oil, it was applied with a lower oil to pigment ratio. Barium sulfate was a frequent component of grounds used by French painters in absorbent ground paintings according to Bomford et al., 1990. This is similar to the paint described for "Les Collines au-delà de Meulan", in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art [18]. Present tests of the Hoover Collection painting with gas chromatography and IR spectrographic analysis indicate a linseed oil medium. Pigments include aluminum silicate, barium sulfate and lead chromate (green chromate) and zinc stearate [19].
The ground which la Fresnaye used in his "The Conquest of Air", in the collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art is primarily lead white and a small amount of calcite [20] (see Figure 5 for detail of pigment on canvas).

Analysis of pigments in a number of paintings by de la Fresnaye in American collections and the Hoover painting conducted by McCrone Associates demonstrated the pigments were virtually identical and probably from the same palette (see copy of McCrone report, Figure 3).

The ground is very thin, coarse, and mixed with pigment in most of the canvas. Thin, incompletely applied grounds are found on la Fresnaye paintings in the U.S.A., e.g., "Les collines au-delà de Meulan" at the Indianapolis Museum of Art [21]. A sample of the ground was also analyzed by Harlan Associates indicating it was primarily composed of barium sulfate and zinc stearate with a binder of an oil containing palmitic acid and stearic acid by FT-IR. Emission spectrographic analysis produced results of barium and zinc, calcium, magnesium, aluminum, iron, silicon and copper.

Barium sulfate was a frequent component of grounds used by French painters in absorbent ground paintings according to Jirat-Wasiutynski & Newton [22].

The size of the original canvas is unknown as it was purchased wrapped into squares. The size of the painting, which is now 7 feet high by 10 and 1/2 foot in length (Figure 2), is very similar to that of "The Conquest of Air". There is evidence of an unusual installation of the painting on the canvas as mentioned. This evidence is contained in tacking holes in the canvas as a tacking edge and by tacking holes which are either painted around by the artist or had a plate or other cover over them during the execution of the work. This may be remnants of how the artist set the canvas for painting on a temporary easel, or as attached to a wall in the studio (marouflage). However, this could indicate the canvas was used as a theatrical background as the "Picasso Rideau...". The distortions in the canvas from folding are not severe and are only noticeable in raking light.
Transmitted light, however, demonstrated the same feature of the design soaking through the canvas as in the absorbent ground paintings examined by Jirat-Wasiutynski & Newton [22].
No damage to the paint layer has resulted and thus I did not recommend an extensive cleaning, remounting or other treatment at the time other than a light surface cleaning and adjustment of sagging in some areas of the canvas by re-stretching.

A number of paintings by de la Fresnaye are in public collections in the U.S.A. and were identified by use of the catalogue raisonné by Germain Seligman [2]. A survey of these paintings was undertaken to acquire any available technical information (Table 1).
Many of de la Fresnaye's paintings in America are lined and this limits the ability to sample both fiber and ground for testing. A detailed study of "The Conquest of Air" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City was conducted to compare surface features, tonality, canvas and ground. The exercise was not very fruitful as the painting had not only been varnished heavily, but had been relined with the waxresin method by the Kecks. They had removed an earlier heavy varnish which had yellowed [23]. However, in conversation with Dr. Steven Silver of New York University (NYU), we noticed that the painting shared some similarities of execution with the Hoover canvas, most apparent was the incomplete application of ground and pigment leaving areas of raw canvas and ground as part of the painting surface. This has been shown to be common in many of de la Fresnaye's works. The de la Fresnaye painting, "Le Cuirassier" (1910-11) is now at the Musee d'Art Contemporary of the City of Paris and appears to be varnished.
I could not examine the verso to determine if it had been lined, however. The fiber appears to be linen and close-weaved. The de la Fresnaye, "Le Quatorze Juillet" (1914) is also painted on linen and is close-weaved. It does not show the same ground as the Hoover painting.

Design and Execution

The design of the Hoover de la Fresnaye is similar to "L'Homme Assis" (1913-1914) in the Musee National d'Art Moderne which is smaller (131x162cm) and less so to "Le Quatorze Juillet" (1914) which is very small in comparison (74x 92cm). The largest of these two is, therefore, almost 1/2 the size of the Hoover painting.
However, the La Conquete de L'Air (1913) is 107x89 inches approximately, making it almost exactly the same size. As Seligman states about these other two paintings, they were painted in the period of the years of the great figure compositions and still-lifes. We must assume that if the Hoover painting is a de la Fresnaye it would have to have been painted during this time.
Seligman refers [2] to de la Fresnaye's admiration of Italian frescos which one biographer notes is where he derived his fresco-like quality of image and tone. Such an admiration would insensibly lead to a desire to paint in a large format.
Cogninet & George [24] come to a similar conclusion. The support for the painting, a rough open-weave fabric, is more characteristic of ad hoc theatrical sets as in a scrim for a Ballets Russes and de la Fresnaye's association with artist Marie Laurencin [2] places de la Fresnaye in the company of artists who regularly worked in the theater [25;26]. This may be improbable by the fact that most of Diaghilev's stage settings were painted in water based pigments on the floor. All this parallels many other French paintings of the period where the paint soaks through the canvas [22] (Figure 6).

De la Fresnaye produced a number of works of varied subjects which were curious in intent and also never exhibited in any of the salons, like the "Jeanne d'Arc" (1912). More interesting is the fact that de la Fresnaye was interested in the color experiments of Robert Delaunay [2] and that "La Conquete de l'Air" is characterized as an experiment in pure color as Delaunay was conducting. Many of de la Fresnaye's paintings are executed on an absorbent ground similar to that seen in Delaunay's paintings.

It is in the gradual increase in such experiment in color and size of painting that we find a place for the Hoover de la Fresnaye, as Seligman argues that in "Le Quatorze Juillet" de la Fresnaye had heroic proportions in mind for the final version of the canvas [2]. Between 1912 and the first 7 months of 1914 de la Fresnaye's production was considerable and in the pressure of the time an ad hoc work on a fairly cheap support might be expected which approaches the limits of grandeur. This is, nevertheless, a dangerous place to approach, for most fakes and forgeries tend to be created to fill in such missing pieces of an artist's work, the expected great masterpiece which completes a series [27]. As Seligman states [2], "Le Quatorze Juillet" was destined to remain an unfinished monument to an unfinished life.

Still, we lack the analysis of the ground of "La Conquete de l'Air", though we have the results of the analysis of the Hoover painting and the Georges De Mire. It would be interesting to compare these results with an analysis of the pigment in the painting in the Musee National d'Art Moderne ("L'Homme assis"), with closeup photos of the weave in the Hoover and Paris paintings, which might provide additional materials to our analysis. Analysis of a surface sample from "La Conquete de l'Air" by Eugena Ordonez [28] - which may prove to be ground, although she was not entirely sure - showed the sample to be lead white and a small amount of calcite.

Conclusion

The working method in the Hoover painting compared to that in "Les Collines au-delà de Meulan" show considerable similarity, with areas scraped and reworked*, but with similar color schema piled, drawn and pared down. More studies of de la Fresnaye paintings for working method evidence will enhance our understanding of de la Fresnaye's approach. The combination of the scientific data available from a number of other de la Fresnaye paintings, compared with paintings by other artists of the period provide a strong basis for placing the Hoover de la Fresnaye in context with the body of work by Roger de la Fresnaye. Further art historical information is necessary although the information on Georges de Batz and his relationship with Seligman contained in their letters is compelling but does requires some clarification. What is reproduced in Figure 4 and the online Appendix are photographs of letters glued into a book owned by Mr. Georges de Batz. The letters are written by Seligman to de Batz and indicate an intimate relationship.

Information drawn from the papers of Mr. Herbert Hoover, including a sales receipt, show thatthe Hoover painting was purchased from Butterfield's auction a few years after the main sale of the de Batz estate. Conversations with the executor of the de Batz estate and the Director of the Georges de Batz Foundation, demonstrate that many of the paintings from the de Batz house and the estate were disposed of outside of the initial Butterfield's sale. Some of these were accomplished by the first lawyer for the estate, Bruce Walkup.

The physical evidence of the materials of the painting, the method of execution and the presence of the painting in San Francisco at the same auction house as the sale of the de Batz collection and de Batz's connection with Seligman all go far to establishing a link between the painting and Roger de la Fresnaye.
It is not the place for a conservator to determine an attribution of a painting, rather we more often provide evidence which undermines such attributions. In this case we have investigated each and every aspect of the painting in a physical sense and attempted to disprove its association with the painter. We have come to the conclusion, however, that this cannot be achieved, nor, however, can we use this same information to establish, without a doubt that the painting is by the artist.

It is simply beyond our brief and yet we can recognize that the painting shares material and aesthetic qualities with works of that artist. Yet as in the mystery of the dispersal of de Batz's fortune, we cannot solve the problem either of the authenticity of the painting nor of its provenance. How de Batz gained possession of this painting is a mystery, though we know that the Ballet Russes did come to New York in the early part of the last century so if the painting was created for the Ballet it could have come to America then. Yet de Batz or his father, who was also a collector, could have acquired the  painting in France before the Second World War or directly from de la Fresnaye. All of our questions remain open and yet the trail has gone cold. In every case Georges de Batz remains, like the painting, an intriguing enigma waiting for solution.


Acknowledgements

A research project like this one cannot be carried out without the cooperation and genuine professional care of many conservators, collectors, art historians and scientists. I am especially indebted to Walter McCrone and his wife/colaborator, Lucy for the analysis of pigments from several museums. The willingness of institutions to provide samples and take the time to take them and label and send them was of great benefit and I am both humbled and heartened by their dedication to building our knowledge. David Miller & Don Steele of the Indianapolis Museum of Art helped in this way, but also provided other information about the de la Fresnaye in their collection and worked with the curators there to answer other questions. The same role was played by David Marquis, of the Upper Midwest Conservation Association Laboratory, Suzanne Penn of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Lucy Belloli of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was also of assistance, Jim Coddington, Michael Duffy, Eugena Ordonez and Christopher McGlinchey of the New York Museum of Modern Art, Andrea Guidi di Bagno and Wynne H. Phelan of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Professor Catherine C. Bock-Weiss of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Dr. Kenneth E. Silver of New York University, Dr. Linda D. Henderson of The University of Texas at Austin, and Mr. Robert M. Murdock of New York.

References

1. George Boas, “An Exhibition of The deBatz Collection”, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1953.
2. Germain Seligman, “Roger de la Fresnaye with a Catalogue Raisonne”, New York Graphic Society, 1969.
3. Kenneth E. Silver, “Esprit de Corps: The Art of the Parisian avant-garde and the First World War, 1914-1925”, Thames and Hudson, London, 1989.
4. Eric C. Hulmer, “The Role of Conservation in Connoisseurship”, University of Pittsburgh 1955 (available from University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan).
5. N. Caldararo, "Fake or transitional form? Analysis of a purported Pre-Columbian Olmec artifact and comparison with similar published objects from Mesoamerica", Mexicon, vol. 23, June 2000, pp. 58-63.
6. N. Caldararo, "Tribal art: authenticity and 'fakes'", Antique West, Feb., 1992, pp. 2,6,32.
7. N. Caldararo, "Profiting from reproductions", Archaeology, 46, 2, 1993, pp. 14.
8. C. Caple, “Conservation Skills: Judgement, Method and Decision Making”, Routledge, London, 2000.
9. J. M. Allegro, “The Shapira Affair”, Doubleday, Garden City, 1965.
10. T. B. Kahle and N. Caldararo, "State of preservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls", Nature, vol. 321, n. 6066, 8 May,1986, pp. 121-2.
11. N. Caldararo, "Storage conditions and physical treatments relating to the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls", Radiocarbon, 37, 21-32, 1994.
12. Katrina Vanderlip Carbonnel, "A study of French painting canvases", JAIC, vol. 20, n. 1, 1981, pp. 3-20.
13. W. A. Cote (ed.), "Papermaking Fibers", Syracuse University Press, 1980.
14. Marilou Florian, "Identification of plant and animal materials in artifacts", in M. Florian, D. P. Kronkright, and R. Norton, Conservation of Artifacts Made from Plant Materials, Getty Trust, Princeton U. Press, 1990, pp. 29-79.
15. L. Mayer and G. Myers, "American Impressionism, Matteness and Varnishing", JAIC, vol. 43, n. 3, 2004, pp. 237-254.
16. A. Katlan, "American Artists’ Materials", vol. 2, Madison, Conn., Soundview Press, 1992.
17. D. Bomford, J. Kirby, J. Leighton and A. Roy, "Art in the Making: Impressionism", National Gallery, London, 1990.
18. David Miller, Personal Communication, 1998.
19. Harlan & Associates, "Report on the results of GS and IR spectrographic analysis of samples from the Hoover Painting", 1997.
20. Eugena Ordonez, Personal Communication, 1997.
21. D. Steele, D. Marquis and D. Miller, Personal Communications, 1997.
22. V. Jirat-Wasiutynski and T. Newton, "Absorbent grounds and the matt aesthetic in Post Impressionist painting," in Painting Techniques: History, Materials and Studio, Contributions to the Dublin Congress, 7-11 September 1998, ed. A. Roy and P. Smith, London, IIC, pp. 235-9.
23. Sheldon and Caroline K. Keck, Conservation Report, dated 9/9/48.
24. Raymond Cogniat and Waldemar George, "Oeuvre Complete: Roger de la Fresnaye”, Paris, editions Rivarol, 1950.
25. Nancy Van Norman Baer, “Bronislava Nijinska: A Dancer's Legacy”, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986.
26. Van Norman Baer, Personal Communication, 1984-88 (and my own personal experience and research while working with artifacts from the Ballets Russes in several shows installed in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco).
27. O. Kurz, “Fakes”, Faber and Faber, New York, 1967, ed. Dover Books.
28. Eugena Ordonez, Personal Communication, 1997.

Niccolo Caldararo
contact: Caldararo@aol.com
Conservation Art Service
P.O. Box 77570,
San Francisco, California 94107

Niccolo Caldararo is Director and Chief Conservator of Conservation Art Service in San Francisco, a private conservation  laboratory. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at San Francisco State University. He received his BA in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970 after working in the Anthropology Department's Archaeology Laboratory under J. Desmond Clark. He received his MA in Anthropology with a specialization in archaeological conservation in 1983 from San Francisco State University, having set up a conservation laboratory at the University's Tiburon Center for archaeological excavations on Da Silva Island for Dr. Gary Pahl.
Niccolo's research in conservation was concerned with the evolution of decision making with specific focus on treatment development by different conservators dealing with similar problems, and the durability of treatments over time. One publication that resulted from this research was published in Studies in Conservation, v. 42, 1997:157-164 on painted surfaces on ceramic and glass. Another was just published in the AIC Objects Specialty Group's Postprints for the 2004 Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon mainly on the use of ultrasound and benefited form work with Robert Organ and John Asmus.
Today his research is organized around how different peoples preserve their heritage in contrast with his nearly 20 CAP reports on specific museums and historical societies in the USA in the past 20 years. Niccolo has been employed by a number of museums over the past 30 years including the California Academy of Sciences, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the De Young Museum and the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.