Claim Resolution

Resolution: Agreement reached, museum retained work

Resolution Date: 2001

Provenance Coll. Marczell de Nemes (sold at auction, Gallerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris, 1913, no. 100); M. Bousquet, Paris (as Le Grand Pont); Coll. Mandelbaum, Berlin; Leo Lewin, Breslau (1920s); Max Silberberg, Breslau (1920s, sold in 1935 by Paul Graupe, Berlin, as La Promenade de Robinson; with Wolfang Luck, Berlin (as Le Grand Pont). Dr. Schaefer settled an ownership claim with Mr. Silberberg’s son for the painting out of court in Germany in the 1970s. A claim was filed in October 2000, on behalf of the estate of the late Josephine Weinmann, for recovery of Le Grand Pont by Gustave Courbet, on loan to the Yale University Art Gallery since 1981 from the collection of Dr. Herbert and Mrs. Monika Schaefer. The painting, widely published and exhibited prior to its loan to Yale, was on display at the Yale Art Gallery from 1981 to 2001, and included in a Gallery exhibition and catalogue Saints, Sinners, and Scenery: European Genre and Landscape Paintings from the Collection of Herbert and Monika Schaefer (1988). A settlement agreement in 2001 led to the gift of the painting to the Gallery and its temporary return to the Weinmann family on ten-year loan. Following the death of Mr. Weinmann, the painting was returned to Yale, where it is on view at the Art Gallery. It is posted in the provenance section of the Gallery’s website and in ecatalogue, the Gallery’s online collection database.