Portrait of a Boy, possibly Hans Holbein the Younger

Ask anything

• Dr A Goizueta asked

  Was this the Holbein drawing stolen from the Koenings Collection by the Germans in WWII, then by the Soviets, which Soviet art spy Victor Louis tried to sell in London in the late 1980s? Thank you!!

• Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen answered

  Dear Dr. Goizueta,
  
  the Holbein drawing, like most of the prints and drawings in the Boijmans van Beuningen collection, came from the Koenigs collection. Franz Koenigs, a German by birth, decided to move to Amsterdam in 1922. From there he began to have excellent relations with the country's most important museums including, of course, the Boijmans. In 1934, in fact, Koenigs had his valuable collection of prints and drawings exhibited in the museum's then headquarters, the Schieladhuis, including a portrait of Holbein the Younger. At the opening of van der Steur's new building for the Boijmans in 1935, Koenigs decided to lend his works to the museum. In the publication "German Master Drawings from the Kenigs Collection" by Albert J. Elen (former curator of Prints and Drawings at Boijmans) there is a lot of information about it if you want to learn more about it.
  
  Best Regards,
  Mara