1982, Indiana University Art Museum purchase from Richard J. Collins, Inc., New York, NY
1979–1982, with Richard J. Collins, Inc., New York, NY (purchase from Sotheby Parke Bernet)
November 16, 1979, Sale, “Old Master Paintings and Drawings,” Sotheby Parke Bernet (no. 33, as “Shepherd Boy”)
possibly: ca. 1963–ca. 1979, Private Collection, New York, NY or London, England [1]
ca. 1937/1939–ca. 1963, Collection of Herbert T. Kalmus (1881–1963), Los Angeles, CA [2]
by 1927–ca. 1937/1939, Collection of Heinrich Remak (1876–1955), Berlin, Germany [3]
Notes:
[1] An information sheet from Collins and dated May 27, 1982, suggests that the painting may have been in a New York private collection, or possibly in London, at an unspecified time.
[2] Kalmus, the inventor of color film and co-founder of the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation, was also first cousin to Heinrich Remak, who formerly owned the painting. In the late 1930s, Kalmus helped Heinrich and other members of the Remak family to escape Nazi Germany just before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1939, Kalmus received a Fiorentino Rosso painting now at the Los Angeles Art Museum as a gift from Heinrich’s brother Ernst in gratitude for his assistance (as described by J. Patrice Marandel, Ahmanson Chief Curator of European Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in his Abcedario: Collecting and Recollecting, Los Angeles: LACMA, 2017, p. 70). It is not certain whether Kalmus may also have received the Piazzetta as a gift subsequent to the Remaks brothers’ emigration, or whether he purchased it in advance from one or both brothers to help finance their escape (per information in Kalmus collector file at Getty Research Library).
[3] Heinrich Remak lent this and six additional paintings to the Antiquitätenhaus Wertheim, Berlin, for exhibition in 1927. In the accompanying exhibition catalogue, he is listed as the current owner (Besitzer) of the Piazzetta painting (“Italienische Malerei 17. und 18. Jahrhundert,” exh. cat., Berlin: Antiquitätenhaus Wertheim, 1927: cat. no. 112, as “Knabe mit Hut in der Hand”). Heinrich’s brother Ernst loaned six additional paintings to the same show. A mostly indecipherable label on the verso of the frame appears to read “Ernst Remak” (rather than “Heinrich”), which may suggest that they had each owned the painting at various points in its history with the family.
Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.
May–June 1927, "Italienische Malerei des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts: Ausstellung aus Berliner Besitz," Antiquitätenhaus Wertheim, Berlin, Germany (cat. no. 112, as "Knabe mit Hut in der Hand," lent by Heinrich Remak).
