Baron Ferenc Hatvany (29 October 1881 – 7 February 1958) was a Hungarian painter and art collector. A son of Sándor Hatvany-Deutsch and a member of the Hatvany-Deutsch family [hu], he graduated in the Académie Julian in Paris. His collection[1] included paintings by Tintoretto, Cézanne, Renoir, Ingres and Courbet, most notably L'Origine du monde and Femme nue couchée.
Ferenc Hatvany | |
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Born | (1881-10-29)29 October 1881 Budapest, Austria-Hungary |
Died | 7 February 1958(1958-02-07) (aged 76) Lausanne, Switzerland |
Nationality | Hungarian |
Spouse | Lucia Királdi-Lukács |
Parent(s) | Sándor Hatvany-Deutsch and Emma Hatvany-Deutsch |
During the Second World War, his art collection was placed in a bank vault in Budapest to protect it from the pro-Nazi Hungarian government, and the Hatvany family, which was Jewish, fled the country just before the Nazi takeover of Hungary in March 1944.[2]
Mystery surrounds the fate of the paintings, which appear to have been looted by Germans and then by Soviets.[3] Towards the end of the Second World War his paintings were looted by Soviet troops but some were ransomed by Hatvany. In 1947 he emigrated to Paris.[4] In 1955 L'Origine du monde was sold at auction for 1.5 million francs (the buyer was psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan). The lawyer Hans Deutsch filed a claim on behalf of Ferenc Hatvany against the German government and obtained compensation for him.[5]
Paintings that were looted from Hatvany's collection are still hanging on museum walls in Budapest, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod.[specify] John Constable's Beaching A Boat, Brighton was identified in the collection of The Tate in 2014.[6]
Hatvany died in Lausanne in 1958.
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