Dear Pando and Pando's mother,
The frame gave him in!
The painter you're looking for is Louis Douzette (1834 - 1924), a
North German post-Romantic painter, who specialised in sea themes and
moonlighted landscapes.
However, since the frame hint lit the fire, let's start with it.
Vergolder means in German a gilder (the one who covered the frame with
gold, probably). Oranienburger Str. 7 is at the heart of what used to
be the Jewish Quarter in Berlin. Almost none is left of the original
buildings, and of course, we could sadly assume that the fate of poor
Mr. Groditzky was not different than that of his fellow Berliner Jews.
There is actually a gallery over there, but they have no idea about
former owners.
But, when I searched "donzette berlin" in Google
(<://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Donzette+berlin>),
I found a site in German, whose original text dated from 1888, "Meyer
Koversationslexicon" (Meyer's Encyclopaedia):
"Donzette (spr. duhsätt), Louis, Maler, geb. 1834 zu Tribsees in.
Pommern, kam 1856 als Stubenmaler nach Berlin und war als solcher noch
fünf Iahre lang thätig. Nebenbei begann er Früchte, Blumen, kleine
Landschaften und Kopien nach Ruisdael zu malen, worin er so viel
Talent entwickelte, daß ihn der Land-schaftsmaler Eschke 1864 in sein
Atelier nahm. In demselben Iahr machte er eine Studienreife an die
Küste der Ostsee und nach Rügen sowie 1865 nach Schweden. So
entstanden nach seiner Rückkehr in. Berlin während der nächsten Iahre
eine Reihe von. Landschaften aus Skandinavien, darunter viele Wi.^
ter- und Mondscheinbilder, die durch ihre treffliche Stimmung und
feine Abtönung großen Beifall fanden und zu seiner Spezialität wurden.
Solche sind z. B..
ein Müllergehöft im Mondschein, die Mitternachtsonne bei Torneä, eine
Mondnacht im Winter, eine Dorf-schmiede im Winter, Landschaft bei
Söderhamn, die schwedische Küste im Mondschein. Später wandteer sich
wieder seinen heimatlichen Gegenden, insbeson-dere der Mark, zu und
schuf zahlreiche Landschaften, welche aber an Kraft der Stimmung seine
poetischen Mondscheinlandsch.aften nicht erreichen. "
SOURCE: Meyer Koversationslexicon (1888-1889), as uploaded to the
University of Ulm website,
<http://susi.e-technik.uni-ulm.de:8080/meyers/servlet/showSeite?ID=1050144903336&BandNr=1050049773634>,
now, if you read German, you might notice that there are many mistakes
in this text - but this is probably because of the conversion from old
German script to a scanned e-format).
The translation of the paragraph [My additions are in brackets] :
Donzette (pronounced: duhsätt [and this will have importance in the
next parts of the answer...]), Louis, Painter. B. 1834 in Tribsees in
Pommern. Came to Berlin in 1856 and worked for 5 years as a room
painter. He begann to paint, at the same period, fruits, flowers,
small landscape and copies of Ruisdael [Jacob Ruisdael, a Baroc
painter, see <http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/ruisdael_jacob_van.html>].
He developed so much talent, that the landscape painter Esche
[Hermann, 1823-1900] took him to his atelier [studio] in 1864. In that
year, he travelled to the Baltic Shore, to the island of Rügen and to
Sweden in 1865. After he came back to Berlin in the following year, he
could present a series of landscape paintings from Scandinavia, among
them many winter and moon-shine paintings, whose accurate atmosphere
and subtle colour changes became very popular and became his
trademark. For example:
Miller's Dwellings in the Moonlight
Midday sun near Torneä
Moon-night in winter
Village Forge in Winter
Landscape near Söderhamn
The Swedish Coast in Moonlight
Later he returned to his home origin areas, especially to the Mark
area and painted many landscape pieces. However, these did not reach
the atmosphere and voice of his moonlight landscape paintings".
Well, as I noted before, Meyer is a scanned copy, written in the old
German script, where "n" is easy to mix with "u". With the information
I had, and especially on the pronounciation of his name, I went to
look for Louis DOUZETTE.
In English, there is no much about him. The Fine Art Emporium
<http://www.fineartemporium.com/se-Douzette.htm> write that he
specialised in "Seascapes and Marine Art, Coastal Views, Harbor and
Moonlight Scenes, Landscapes"; and estimates the value of his works at
$750 a piece.
However, P4Sale site estimates his works much higher:
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:bx_YYRZRfPsJ:www.p4a.com/itemsummary/11011.htm+%22louis+douzette%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
An even higher figure is shown at circleline
<http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:uuGgOsRo_zcJ:www.circline.com/(idpjys3ldhk5ni2y14tpw145)/ProductSearch.aspx%3FdoPostSearch%3Dtrue%26OriginID%3D2023+%22louis+douzette%22&hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8>
.
The fate of some of Douzette's works is unknown, as they have been
looted by the Nazis from the Jewish owners. For example, four
paintings, one of them by Douzette, wwere bought by a Finnish diplomat
in 1948, and never seen again (SOURCE: Finnland and Nazin Loot, p. 45
on Lost Art's Newsletter "Spoils of War" No. 8, May 2003
<http://www.lostart.de/nforum/spoilsofwar.php3?nummer=8>).
In addition, since Meyer leaves us in 1888, you may want to know that
Douzette was appointed to arts professorship in 1896, and lived in
Barth in Northern Germany for 30 years afterwards. He died there in
1924.
Sites in German:
Vineta-Museum in Barth <http://www.cmidesign.de/vineta/louis.htm>,
where he had an exhibition.
More from Vineta/Barth
<http://www.stadt-barth.de/geschichte/persoenlichkeiten.html>
Discover Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
-<http://www.entdeckemv.de/region_darss/themen_orte/kuenstler/douzette/douzette.htm>
(the German State where he was born, worked and lived, besides Berlin)
This discussion in German in "de.rec.kunst.misc" mentions also that
Douzette was of Huguenot origin
<http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Louis+Douzette&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=3D3A06EE.8F5270E3%40t-online.de&rnum=1>.
Books:
Spätromantische Malerei an der Ostsee. Katalog zur Ausstellung im
Vineta-Museum Barth v. 28. 11. 2000 - 25. 2. 2001
From txt.de: http://www2.txt.de/Lukas/TXTSIArtikel/3-931836-57-6
From the German Amazon:
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3931836576/302-3801769-7401625
From FrauenBuch.de http://www.frauenbuch.de/htm/fb2930245.htm
A catalogue of an exhibition of his works in the Barth Museum.
Amazon.de (The German Amazon) offer another book, titled just "Louis Douzette"
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/ASIN/3881320903/302-3801769-7401625
I hope this answered your question. My journey began, as noted before,
with a search for the gilder; and from there, to a search of the known
name and "Berlin", and later, to a search for Louis Douzette
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Louis+Douzette>.
Please contact me if you need any further clarifications on my answer
before you tip/rate it. |
