Charles Sedelmeyer

Charles Sedelmeyer (30 April 1837, Vienna – 9 August 1925, Paris) was an Austrian and French 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. Mihály Munkácsy Though specialized in old masters, Sedemeyer became friends with the artist Mihály Munkácsy, who lived in Paris from 1872 onwards. Sedelmeyer bought and sold Mihaly Munkácsy'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. Rembrandt