Mabel Alvarez
About the Artist Exhibitions Collections Publications Artwork Submission and Authentication
Available Oil Paintings Available Works on Paper All Known Pictures Works by Other Artists
ALBERT HERTER (1871-1950)
Master Rosenbaum (Portrait of Albert M. Rosenbaum, Jr.)      1914
Oil/Canvas     36X25

Signed upper left:  "ALBERT HERTER" underneath which appears the artist's device.
(The floral "device" which Herter used as part of his painting signature, a cherry blossom, was developed on his and Adele's honeymoon in Japan in 1893.  Adele's  device was a flowering wisteria.  The Herters originally created these devices as  emblems for the garments worn by their jinrikisha (rickshaw) men, but they soon adopted them as personal monograms.  
 
Note:  Albert and Adele Herter's son,   Christian A. Herter, was Governor of Massachusetts and later Eisenhower's last Secretary of State.
 
The beautifully painted background in this painting reflects Herter's fame as a designer of tapestries (Herter Looms).
 
The frame is original, an early 20th-century arts and craft frame probably made by Stanford White.
 
The picture was cleaned and revarnished for the first time in December, 1997 by James Greaves, Santa Monica, CA..
 
Provenance:   
 
Albert M. (18 Apr 1861 - 3 Nov 1927) and Nettie Rosenbaum, young Albert's parents
 
to Milton Meyers (formerly Milton Rosenbaum, born 1891), young Albert's older brother
 
to Fern Meyers (4 June 1900 - 27 December 1999), widow of Milton Meyers
 
to Mabel Alvarez  (Fern Meyers' sister, Pearl Rogers, was Mabel Alvarez' secretary.)
 

According to Mrs. Meyers' best memories of the story she was told, the Rosenbaums,  whom she never knew, commissioned Herter to paint their son after his impending death became known.  She didn't remember if she'd ever heard the cause of his death, but it was probably consumption.
 
This painting hung for many years in the same room in which, in 1947, the playboy/gangster Bugsy Siegel, who built the first gambling establishment in the little isolated desert spot called Las Vegas, was ambushed and killed.  The still-magnificent and famous house at 810 Prospect Drive, Beverly Hills, was owned by Milton and Fern Meyers until the early 1940s.  They sold it to the entertainer George Jessel.  Siegel's girlfriend Virginia Hill, I understand, was leasing the house, but I haven't heard whether or not from Jessel.