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A Long Lost Melchers on View

By Joanna D. Catron



On the Water by Gari Melchers
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. George H. Emerson

One of the most pleasing aspects of my work is to have a long lost Melchers painting resurface. The pleasure was doubled recently when Steven Emerson called to say that he and his brother George share two paintings of which I have been in search.

Emerson described one as a portrait of his mother, Brigitte Hahn, and her sister Anna as children. The other was described as a "destitute mother" and her two sleeping children adrift in a boat on a Dutch canal. Emerson's verbal description of the mother and her children closely matches a photograph of an unidentified painting stored in our archives. It also fits the description given by enthusiastic art critics who encountered a painting, listed as On the Water or Homeward, in exhibitions from 1896 until its sale in 1900.

The buyer of On the Water in the sale of 1900 was Emerson's grandfather, Georg Hahn, the owner of a steel pipe factory, Hahnische Werke, in Berlin, Germany. Years after he purchased the picture, Hahn reestablished his acquaintance with Melchers and invited the artist to paint his two young children, Anna and Brigitte.

The meaning of a letter composed by Melchers to his wife, one that had long puzzled me, is suddenly clear, and confirms the provenance (history of ownership) of both paintings:

May 29, 1911
Weimar

. . . On Saturday I called on Dr. Hahn who you may remember
called on us in Egmond (Holland) seven years ago, and he owns
a very good picture of mine. They wanted me to paint a portrait of
their baby, her name is Bridgett . . . They are lovely people
and even though under protest I really felt that I might try and
do it . . ."

It is easy to understand why the mother in On the Water, with those entreating eyes, has been perceived as "destitute," for she does look, in a sense, set adrift. On the other hand, that she travels by boat is nothing out of the ordinary in a place lying mostly below sea level. So what did Melchers intend by the forlorn tone of the painting?

The theme of motherhood was a favorite of Melchers and his earliest examples are often charged with religious symbolism. On the Water follows an age-old formula; the Madonna directs her penetrating gaze at us, indicating that she possesses full knowledge of her sleeping child's future role as Redeemer of mankind. The duality of Christ's nature as both human and divine, and therefore, the necessity of his own purification from sin, is represented here by an older, second child at the mother's side in the role of St. John the Baptist.

But the expressive imagery of On the Water tells no tales about its past life and the ordeal experienced by its former owner, Georg Hahn. Early in the Second World War, Hahn, a Jew in his late 70s, was forced to send his family and belongings, including his Melchers paintings, to safety in London. He stayed behind to arrange a transfer of his assets to a bank in London, which he accomplished with some difficulty. His luck was still with him when finally he appeared before the exit authorities. A friendly intercessor quietly pulled him from the line and secreted him out another exit, allowing him to escape by foot through Switzerland. With the close of the war, the Melchers paintings followed Brigitte Hahn to the United States and today live with her heirs.

Mr. and Mrs. George H. Emerson have generously loaned On the Water for display at Gari Melchers Home and Studio.

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