Solar Dance by Modris Eksteins

Author:Modris Eksteins [Eksteins, Modris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-307-39861-1
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2012-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

CELA N’EST PAS …

Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin)

By 1932 Otto Wacker, who said he loved beautiful things, was in deep financial difficulty. But so was Count Harry Kessler, who also loved beautiful things. Kessler had squandered his inheritance, and for several years now he had been begging his sister in France, Wilma, the marquise de Brion, for assistance. In an attempt to summon sympathy he told her that he was thinking of selling his extensive collection of art: “Of course I intend to sell the Cézanne and the Renoir as soon as somebody offers me a decent and normal price. They are worth 100,000 marks each under normal conditions.… The Van Gogh is of course worth much more; in fact, it is difficult to value it at all, as it is one of his outstanding and celebrated pictures and there are very few Van Goghs left in the market, most of them being already in public collections.”

Despite his sister’s ongoing magnanimity, in the autumn of 1931 Kessler was finally forced to sell his last Van Gogh, The Plain of Auvers (F 781), for 100,000 marks ($23,800) to pay pressing debts and bills. “Tout cela n’est pas amusant,” he commented—not at all amusing. In February 1932 he informed his sister that all he had in the house was a bottle of beer and some tea.1 Otto Wacker was in similar straits: he claimed he could not afford even a tram ticket.

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