234 The Saxon Elector Frederick Augustus II/King Augustus III of Poland once owned a collection of paintings that included 157 pastels by Rosalba Carriera – an incredible number of autographworks by the celebrated Italian artist. For around 170 years, this suite of works formed the core holdings of the Pastel Cabinet. However, in just under three decades of the 20th century – between the abolition of the monarchy in Saxony after the First World War and the end of the Second World War – this unparalleled collection suffered heavy losses. According to the terms of the “Auseinandersetzungsvertrag” – a settlement between the Free State of Saxony and the House of Wettin, reached in 1924 following lengthy negotiations – fourteen pastels by Rosalba Carriera with their original frames (among a total of more than 120 paintings) were allocated as compensation to the dynasty that had long ruled over Saxony.1 Many of these pieces were promptly put on the art market. In addition, 28 pastels by Carriera have been considered missing or lost since the end of the SecondWorldWar; in many cases, nothing is known about the possible present whereabouts of these works, or even if they survived the ravages of the war in the first place. A much larger portion of the Carriera holdings, however – a total of 40 works – was exchanged or sold by Hans Posse, then director of the Dresden Gemäldegalerie, through various art dealers between 1919 and around 1930 – a course of action that would be unthinkable for a public museum today.2 The purpose of these transactions was to fund the acquisition of the kind of works that the collection lacked at the time: above all, paintings by late 19th- and early 20th- century artists. The last four Carriera pastels to enter the art market were sold in 1946. No trace can be found of many of these deaccessioned objects; often there is not even an image that would help to identify a particular piece. Some can be traced to private or museum collections, while others have resurfaced on the art market every so often – sometimes even with their original Dresden Rococo frame. Exemplifying the chequered history of these works, one pastel that was sold is returning to Dresden for the current exhibition: Clio, the Muse of History, which has been in private German ownership since its deaccession in 1924. There are now 73 pastels by Rosalba Carriera in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie; the 84 works that were deaccessioned, sold, or lost therefore constitute more than half of the former holdings.3 Unfortunately there is also a large gap in the holdings of miniatures by the Venetian artist: for a long time, seventeen miniatures by Carriera were displayed alongside her pastels in the “Cabinet of Rosalba” (or Rosalba Gallery), which was located in the former Stallhof (mews). From 1855 onwards they were displayed in the Semperbau (Semper Building). By 1945, thirteen of the miniatures had disappeared; their small format makes it likely that they were stolen, and their current whereabouts are unknown. Two other miniatures had already been passed on to the Association of the House ofWettin, Albertine Line (Verein Haus Wettin A.L.) in 1924, whichmeans that by the end of the SecondWorldWar there were only two Carriera miniatures left in the Gemäldegalerie collection. RE 1 • Rudert 2006/07, pp. 101–106. 2 • Enke 2022. 3 • Henning 2009, pp. 319–351.
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