Abraham Jacob Saportas

Dutch-Jewish art collector Abraham Jacob Saportas was born in Amsterdam. He was the eldest of five children. David Saportas (1740-1815), his father, was a Portuguese-Jewish merchant and banker while his mother, Adriana Gordijn, came from a Roman Catholic family.   The Saportas family earned their living as merchants. His father and his older brother Samuel managed the successful trading company Samuel and David Saportas. Samuel bought a canal house at Oudezijds Voorburgwal no. 239 and the house at the back, Achterburgwal no. 241. The canal house was used as a residence and the other property as an office for the company. After Samuel’s death, Abraham Jacob joined the company together with his cousin, Jacob, Samuel’s son. Jacob lived with Abraham Jacob and his family.   Abraham Jacob Saportas was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church and raised according to his mother’s faith. Nevertheless, he maintained close ties with his father’s side of the family. His first wife, Catharina Bernardina Ellinckhuysen, died in 1816 after losing an infant. He married his second wife, Catharina Gertrude Smith (b. 1799) on June 16, 1825. They had three children, two sons – born in 1823 and 1824 – and a daughter.   Abraham Jacob Saportas was an amateur draftsman. He was a member of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Instituut (Royal Dutch Institute) and the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam (Royal Academy of Visual Arts).

After his death in Amsterdam, his widow moved to Düsseldorf with two of their children. One part of his collection had been auctioned in 1832 and the rest in 1836, after his death. Art dealer Albertus Brondgeest acquired Caspar Netscher’s Jeunes artistes at the 1832 sale. Then Abraham Jacob bought the painting back. At his posthumous sale, art dealer Cornelis François Roos (1802-1884) acquired it. Adolphe Schloss purchased the painting from art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer in 1902. After the Schloss Collection was confiscated in April 1943, German cataloguers labeled the painting “Schloss 160.”

See more: Amstelodamum, 54e jr. Januari 1967, pp. 32-34: [about:blank https://www.amstelodamum.nl/archieven/?mivast=2601&mizig=412&miadt=2601&miamount=4&mistart=32&micols=1&milang=nl&miview=ldt&misort=last_mod%7casc&mif1=1967] Accessed 4 June 2021.