LONDON, ENGLAND.- Sotheby's sale of Old Master Drawings on Wednesday, July 6, 2005 includes a highly significant group of recently-restituted works from the collection of the Czech connoisseur Dr Arthur Feldmann. Charged with historical resonance, the drawings form part of what was once one of the most important collections of its kind: at the time Feldmann's drawings were seized by the Nazis in 1939, his collection was renowned throughout Europe for its breadth and quality. Since then, much of it has been either dispersed or lost, and so the 57 drawings to be offered allow for a rare insight into the taste and collecting habits of one of pre-war Europe's greatest connoisseurs. More than that, the appearance of the Feldmann drawings at auction represents an important restitution landmark, for the sale marks the first occasion on which restituted works of art that were confiscated during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia have come to the international market.

Dr. Arthur Feldmann, a prominent lawyer and businessman in Brno, Czechoslovakia, began collecting drawings in around 1922; by the time the outbreak of World War II put an end to his acquisitions, he owned over 750 drawings and his collection was famous throughout Europe as one of the finest of its day. The fact that no complete catalogue of the collection survives, and the fate of both collection and collector at the hands of the Nazis, mean that the exact scope of the collection remains somewhat unclear, but it is known to have contained fine drawings by the Carracci, Guercino, Parmigianino, Tiepolo, Fragonard, Veronese, Rembrandt and Von Aachen, as well as important works by a range of South German, Swiss and Bohemian artists who are less familiar to today's connoisseurs and collectors.

Gregory Rubinstein, Head of Old Master Drawings at Sotheby's, said: "Investigating the history and contents of the Feldmann Collection opens the door on an entirely different era in the collecting of Old Master Drawings. The group of drawings to be offered for sale covers all the major European schools, but contains at its heart a fascinating core of Central European drawings of a type more or less unseen on the market in modern times."

Among the high quality works by somewhat unfamiliar, Central European artists are a dramatic drawing of a cavalry battle by Melchior Bocksberger (lot 29, est: £2,000-3,000), a highly refined stained glass design by the Swiss Christoph Murer (lot 18), and a swirling, baroque study of St. Michael, by the 18th-century master, Michael Willmann (lot 53, below, est: £1,500-2,000). Given the limited knowledge of this field even among today's scholars, other fine drawings can only be provisionally attributed, including a very lively design for an organ-shutter, thought to be by the Bavarian Hans Krumper (lot 26), and a highly individual and anti-classical Three Graces, attributed to Sebastian Schütz (lot 12). Others, though no less fine, still remain entirely anonymous, such as a hugely powerful study of St. Christopher (lot 45), or a superb design for a fountain (lot 19), dating from the late 16th century.

In addition to these fascinating Central European drawings, the collection also contains drawings by Italian, Dutch and French artists of the same period. The Italian drawings include a fine study of St. Francis Supported by Angels, by Palma Giovane (lot 43, est: £3,000-5,000), and an amusing, though anonymous, design for a firework display, to be held in Rome's Piazza del Popolo in 1728, as well as several good 18th-century Venetian drawings. The highlights of the Dutch group are probably the typically animated peasant scene by Andries Both (lot 57), and a drawing of The Liberation of St. Peter, long thought to be by Rembrandt but now attributed to his pupil, Govaert Flinck (lot 58, est: £5,000-7,000).

The story of what happened to the Feldmanns and their collection following the outbreak of war is both dramatic and tragic, paralleling the fate of many other European Jewish families of the time. The collection was clearly high on the Nazis' hit-list: on the very morning that the Germans invaded Bohemia and Moravia, 15 March 1939, the Gestapo occupied the Feldmann villa in Brno, forcing Dr. and Mrs. Feldmann to leave the house and its entire contents - including the huge drawings collection in its specially constructed cabinets - and allowing them to take only a small suitcase of belongings. All their property was subsequently formally confiscated, and Dr. Feldmann was prevented from continuing his work as a lawyer, so they lived for the next two years from hand to mouth, on the charity of friends. Then, on 10 March 1941, Dr. Feldmann was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death, but he suffered a stroke, dying a few days later, on 16 March. His wife Gisela was deported, first to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz, where she in turn met her death.

A few months before Dr. Feldmann's death, a German administrator was appointed by the Nazis to liquidate the remainder of his possessions. He complained, however, that by that time only 129 drawings, a fraction of the original collection, remained, the others having been long since dispersed by the Gestapo. These 129 he duly listed, intending to sell them to the Albertina in Vienna, but the Czech authorities lodged their strenuous objection, insisting that whatever could still be salvaged of the illustrious Feldmann Collection should remain in Brno. The drawings were therefore "purchased" for the Moravian Provincial Museum, Brno, and each drawing was stamped with the distinctive eagle-shaped MZM monogram, standing for "Moravske zemske museum" ("Moravian Provincial Museum").

In 1961, the Feldmann drawings were transferred from the Moravske zemske museum to the Moravská galerie in Brno, and in 2003, the 57 drawings now offered for sale were finally returned the Feldmanns' heirs, under a new restitution law passed by the Czech government, perhaps in anticipation of their country's entry into the EU. Aside from its importance as a landmark moment in the sale of restituted property, July's sale is also of great significance as regards the history of collecting, as it offers a unique opportunity to acquire a part of a highly celebrated and very unusual collection, formed by a gifted and insightful collector in early 20th-century Moravia and reflecting the taste that rather distant culture and time.