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The fate of the «Rabbi»
Marc Chagall’s painting «The Rabbi or The Pinch of Snuff» («Rabbiner» or
«Die Prise») (1926), is a particularly good example due to the combination
of genre and motif. On 4 September 1933, Kunsthalle Basel approached
Kunsthalle Mannheim asking it for the loan of Chagall’s painting. It
promptly received a reply stating that this would not be possible, but that
the Kunsthalle could buy the painting. Finally, the painting was displayed
in the Basel exhibition. However, the Kunsthalle Basel was committed to
displaying the painting with an explanatory note stating: «This painting was
shown in the Exhibition of Artistic Bolshevism in spring 1933». This
condition was complied with.
The initial refusal to make the painting available can be explained by the
events preceding the request: after the National Socialists came to power, the
City of Mannheim authorities and therefore the Kunsthalle underwent the
process of «Gleichschaltung» – the complete coordination of all political and
other activities by the Nazi regime. Soon afterwards, an exhibition was held
in which «Cultural-Bolshevik Paintings» («Kulturbolschewistische Bilder»)
were displayed and set up in contrast to «exemplary» art. In order to draw
attention to the event, the organisers staged a theatrical spectacle centred
around Chagall’s «Rabbi». The painting was dragged around in a procession
leading to the home of the suspended Kunsthalle director before being put
on display – unframed, of course – in various Mannheim shop windows, next
to a sign reading: «Tax payers, you should know how your money is spent!».
What is remarkable is that the painting was offered for sale as early as 1933,
long before in 1938/39. In the interim – i.e., before its definitive confiscation
by the Reich Agency in 1937 – it was put up for sale but failed to find a
purchaser. For example, in June 1936 and May 1937, it was offered twice to
Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur, once by Hildebrand Gurlitt, Hamburg, for
6,000 reichsmarks and once by the Cologne-based Galerie Abels for
7,500 reichsmarks. In 1928, it was purchased in Mannheim for 4,500 reichsmarks.
Reinhart declined to buy it on both occasions; his reasons for refusing
the painting are not known.
In 1937, Chagall’s «Rabbi» was displayed at the Munich exhibition of
«Degenerate Art», again as an object of ridicule. It was then offered for sale
again, this time at the Lucerne auction in June 1939, where Georg Schmidt
bought it for the Basler Kunstmuseum for just 1,600 francs (plus 240 francs
commission), which amounted to around 850 reichsmarks at the time. Thus
Chagall’s «Rabbi» finally found a permanent home in Basel, which it had
visited on loan as early as 1933.
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