A Soldier Smoking a Pipe

Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony [1670-1733, also King Augustus II of Poland], Dresden;[1] by descent through the Kings of Saxony to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden;[2] deaccessioned and exchanged 1927 with (Galerie Van Diemen, Berlin);[3] sold 20 October 1927 to August Neuerburg [1884-1944], Hamburg;[4] by descent in the Neuerburg family; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 9 July 2008, no. 28); (Richard Green, London) and (Johnny Van Haeften Ltd., London); sold 2008 to private collection, England; purchased April 2016 through (Johnny Van Haeften, London) by NGA. [1] The painting arrived at the NGA in a frame that bears the cypher of Augustus the Strong. During the reign of his son and successor, Augustus III (1696–1763), paintings from this collection were given gilt frames fitted with glass-fronted doors for protection. The doors could be opened with a key, which enabled the elector and his privileged guests to the study the paintings closely. In the 1880 and 1912 catalogues of the Royal Picture Gallery in Dresden, the painting is noted as being in the 1722 inventory of the collection. [2] In late 19th and early 20th century catalogues of the royal collection (1880, 1896, 1902, 1905, 1912), the painting has either or both the numbers 1588 and 1747, and is noted as being number 1553 in the 1753 inventory prepared by Pietro Guarienti. In 1901, the painting was hanging in Room 16 of the right wing, first floor of the Zwinger. [3] The Van Mieris and other paintings from the Dresden collection were exchanged in return for Giambattista Tiepolo's _Triumph of Amphitrite_. [4] Sotheby's London office located a copy of Galerie van Diemen's 1927 sales invoice for the painting, which gives Neuerburg's address as Elbchaussee 77 in Blankenese/Hamburg, and is annotated with a note indicating the bill was paid in early 1928. A painting by Rubens in Sotheby's sale of old masters on 6 July 2016 in London was also previously owned by August Neuerburg. The history of ownership section of the catalogue note for the painting (lot number 7) includes this description of the collector: "August Neuerburg was a scion of a dynasty of tobacco merchants, originally from the village of Wittlich, but established in Cologne by the mid-nineteenth century, whence branches and factories were opened all over Germany. The firm established a raw tobacco warehouse in Hamburg in the early 1920s, and August settled there, buying a house at Elbchaussee 77 in the former riverside village of Blankenese, by then a suburb of Hamburg. He seems to have bought most of his pictures in a burst of activity within a remarkably short period of time between 1927 and 1930."