The Madonna with two names and a disputed buyer

The surviving auction plate shows Mary with her hands clasped. The canvas, measuring 65 by 50 centimetres, was recorded in Goudstikker’s collection under Tiepolo. When the Berlin auction house Hans W. Lange offered it in December 1940, its catalogue placed it under Giovanni Battista Pittoni, with an image on plate 5.

After the forced takeover of the Goudstikker gallery, the painting was among works routed back from Göring’s holdings into the wartime art market. In her study of those transactions, Caroline Flick reports that the catalogue specialist Walther Bernt named Albert Speer as the buyer. Speer disputed the claim in post-war questioning. That leaves the buyer’s identity uncertain.

The German Lost Art reference, the Goudstikker number 2004 and the 1940 catalogue image provide the most stable clues. The historical study records the picture’s whereabouts as unknown. The attribution in the Berlin sale and the name used in the Amsterdam inventory both belong to its documented history.