Young Girl in the Studio (Hélène Vary)

The Kunsthalle Bremen has the Berlin sculptor Kurt Reutti to thank for saving this painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from being lost during World War II. As a volunteer on the staff of the “Cultural Repatriation of Artworks” in the Berlin municipal administration, Reutti followed a trace in the Berlin art trade that led him to Karnzow Palace in Brandenburg, near Kyritz in the Prignitz. Several important works of art owned by the Kunsthalle Bremen had been taken there for safekeeping during the war. When Reutti arrived, he witnessed a scene of utter neglect: “On a table, there was a piece of cardboard, upon which wallpaper was cut. It was the tempera painting Young Girl in the Studio by Toulouse-Lautrec. Since the artwork had been lying face down, it was not damaged [ . . . ],” Reutti recalled in 1966. Toulouse-Lautrec’s early portrait shows a profile view of the 17-year-old Hélène Vary, who had lived with her parents near his studio in Montmartre and had sat for him several times as a model.