Quick Facts
Biography
Charles Sedelmeyer (1837–1925) was an Austrian art dealer, collector, and publisher active in Paris from 1866, with premises at 6 rue de la Rochefoucauld. He is credited with popularising the Dutch artist Jan van Goyen in France. Sedelmeyer assessed the American market as important enough to send his Rubens Atalanta and Meleager from the Marlborough collection for exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the winter of 1886. He bought and sold Mihaly Munkacsy's 1878 The Blind Milton Dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughters, and after doing so offered Munkácsy a ten-year contract, making that painter a wealthy man and a really established member of the Paris art world. Sedelmeyer wanted him to paint large-scale pictures which could be exhibited on their own. They decided that a subject taken from the Bible would be most suitable. In 1882 Munkácsy painted Christ before Pilate which was followed by Golgotha in 1884. The trilogy was completed by Ecce Homo in 1896. These huge paintings were taken on a tour and exhibited in many European cities and also in the US. All three were bought by American millionaire John Wanamaker.
A public dispute with Dr. Abraham Bredius over the attribution to Rembrandt of the Woman Taken in Adultery sold by Sedelmeyer to the Weber collection resulted in Sedelmeyer's justificatory pamphlet, 1912. Sedelmeyer's collection was dispersed at a series of sales in Paris.
He had five daughters. Emilie married the sculptor and art historian Stanislas Lami and Hermina married the Czech painter Václav Brožík.
Works
- Catalogue of the celebrated Collection of Paintings, by Modern and Old Masters, and of Water-Colours and Drawings, formed by M. E. Secretan, sold at Sedelmeyer's Galleries, Paris, July, 1889
- Charles Sedelmeyer, Illustrated Catalogue of the Eighth Series of 100 Paintings by Old Masters of the Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French and English Schools, Paris 1902