Moïse Lévy de Benzion (1873–1943) was an Egyptian department store owner who built an important collection of art and antiquities. The collection was plundered by the
Nazis
Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
in France during the Second World War and nearly 1000 items seized.
Egypt
Lévy de Benzion was a
Sephardi Jew born in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
, Egypt, in 1873.
[A happy ending with a pinch of Salt.]
''Al-Ahram Weekly Online'', 19-25 March 2009, No. 939. Retrieved 20 January 2015. He inherited a family business started in 1857
["Levy de Benzion, Moise (1873–1943)", ] which he expanded to include the Grands Magasins Benzion department store and other buildings in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
. As a collector, Lévy de Benzion's acquisitions included Chinese and oriental art, textiles, carpets, books, and an important collection of Egyptian antiquities.
His Egyptian items included fragments from the lost tomb of
Nebamun,
and one of the earliest known glass portraits, believed to depict
Amenhotep II
Amenhotep II (sometimes called Amenophis II and meaning "Amun is Satisfied") was the seventh pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. He inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns i ...
.
Nazi persecution in France
During the Second World War, Lévy de Benzion's collections in Paris and the chateau "La Folie" in Draviel were extensively looted by units of the
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), the Nazi unit charged with following behind invading German troops and identifying and seizing works of art from occupied countries. Records of the ERR indicate that 989 items were seized from the Lévy de Benzion collection alone.
[Harclerode, Peter, & Brendan Pittaway. (1999) ''The Lost Masters: The Looting of Europe's Treasurehouses''. London: ]Victor Gollancz
Sir Victor Gollancz (; 9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter of left-wing politics. His loyalties shifted between liberalism and communism; he defined himself as a Christian ...
, p. 44.
Typical of the handling of the looted paintings was
Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( ; ; ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the ...
's ''Entree d'un Gave'' (1876).
[Un Tableau D'Alred Sisley Provenant de L'Anciienne Collection Moïse Levy de Benzion et Estimé 600 000 / 800 000 €.]
drouot.com Retrieved 22 January 2015. Lévy de Benzion acquired the painting in 1919; the ERR seized it in 1940 and moved it to the Neuschwanstein castle. In 1941 it was acquired by
Walter Hofer for the
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German Nazism, Nazi politician, aviator, military leader, and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which gov ...
collection.
["Monuments Man: Birmingham Museum of Art's founding director Richard Howard helped restitute Nazi-plundered art."]
Michael Huebner, AL.com, 7 February 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2015. Göring, however, was not interested in modern art, preferring
paintings instead, and the work was among a number of modern paintings subsequently exchanged for older works selected from
Theodor Fischer's
Galerie Fischer in Lucerne. Fischer sold the painting to
Willi Raeber
Willi is a given name, nickname (often a short form or hypocorism of Wilhelm) and surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
* Willi Apel (1893–1988), German-American musicologist
* Willi Boskovsky (1909–1991), Austrian violi ...
of Basel, who in turn sold it to Galerie Rosengart of Lucerne, who sold it to
Arthur Stoll. After the war, the painting was claimed by Paule-Juliette Levi de Benzion of Cairo and restituted to her in 1948. After changing hands several more times, it was sold to the
Birmingham Museum of Art
The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Its collection includes more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing various cultures, including Asian, European, United States, Amer ...
in
Alabama
Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...
in 1999. Alfred Sisley's ''Summer at Bougival'' was seized by Göring's agent
Walter Hofer at the ERR, then traded to Fischer, who sold it to
Emil Georg Bührle
Emil Georg Bührle (; 31 August 1890 - 26 November 1956) was a German-born Swiss industrialist, controversial armament manufacturer and art collector. Bührle was long-term managing owner of Oerlikon-Bührle and the founding patron of Foundation ...
in 1942. After the war, Bührle was obliged to restitute the Nazi-looted painting to the estate of Moïse Lévi de Benzion on 15 December 1948, however two years later he repurchased the Sisley from de Benzion's widow.
Among the other works seized and later returned were paintings by
Eugène Boudin
Eugène Louis Boudin (; 12 July 1824 – 8 August 1898) was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. His pastels, ...
,
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot ( , , ; 16 July 1796 – 22 February 1875), or simply Camille Corot, was a French Landscape art, landscape and Portraitist, portrait painter as well as a printmaking, printmaker in etching. A pivotal figure in ...
,
Charles Cottet,
Charles Daubigny,
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...
,
Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedic ...
, and
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...
.
["Levi de Benzion, Moïse".]
Lost Art. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
Death
Lévy de Benzion was arrested by the Nazis in France and died in September 1943.
His collection was sold at auction at Villa Benzion, 6 Rue El Amir Omar,
Zamalek
Zamalek ( , ''al zamalek'') is a ''qism'' (ward) within the West District (''hayy gharb'') in the Western Area of Cairo, Egypt. It is an affluent district on a man-made island which is geologically a part of the west bank of the Nile River, wit ...
, Cairo, in March 1947 in a sale of over 900 lots. Villa Benzion was in a part of Zamalek where several other department-store owners lived, but like many other large private houses in the area, it no longer exists.
"The House That Shrunk On Zamalek's Hassan Sabry Street"
Samir Raafat,
Cairo Times
', 28 September 2000. egy.com Retrieved 22 January 2015.
See also
* Sephardi Jews
Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...
* History of the Jews in Egypt
The history of the Jews in Egypt goes back to ancient times. Egyptian Jews or Jewish Egyptians refer to the Jewish community in Egypt who mainly consisted of Egyptian Arabic-speaking Rabbanites and Karaites. Though Egypt had its own community ...
* History of the Jews in France
The history of the Jews in France deals with Jews and Jewish communities in France since at least the Early Middle Ages. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but persecution increased over time, including multiple expulsio ...
* Pallache family
Pallache, also de Palacio(s), Palache, Palaçi, Palachi, Palatsi, Palacci, Palaggi, al-Fallashi, and many other variations, is a prominent, Judaeo-Spanish, Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish family from the Iberian Peninsula, who spr ...
* Pallache (surname)
References
External links
''Bust of Paule-Dinah Levi de Benzion'' by Paul Troubetzkoy
)
Egyptian mosaic glass inlay from a shrine. Ex Lévy de Benzion collection.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy de Benzion, Moise
1873 births
1943 deaths
Egyptian art collectors
Jewish art collectors
20th-century Egyptian businesspeople
Egyptian expatriates in France
Egyptian Sephardi Jews
People from Alexandria
Subjects of Nazi art appropriations