The Triumphs of a Chessnut - or a Dutch Painter from Tunis."
Painter? Gold digger? Professional fencer? Art Dealer? Counterfeiter? Patron? Art Collector? Swindler? Traveller? An art historian? A professional chess player? It's been a long time since anyone could say. All of them, in fact, and essentially none of them. An inimitable, unique phenomenon. His name was: Leonardus Nardus (1868-1955). That is, even that is not quite so...
In 1868, a Utrecht antique dealer, Emanuel Salomon, was presented with a son by his beautiful, exotic wife, Alida Ballen. Young Leo Salomon quickly distinguished himself with his unparalleled drawing ability and his extravagant interest in almost everything. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam, where he was a pupil of the legendary Professor Altmann, and was already considered a famous portrait painter as a student. At the same time, he studied art history in the humanities, but his promising path was unexpectedly diverted by the gold rush. While the world's hysteria drove adventurers to Alaska and then Australia, he hoped for success in Argentina - to no avail. He dug as much as he could out of the ground so as not to return home empty-handed and ashamed. He combined his father's industry with the trade he had learnt: he appeared in the United States as a merchant. Here he used the name Leonard Salomonson. He offered the treasures of the German Golden Age, the masterpieces of Vermeer, Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Hals, Rubens, the greatest. His clients are soon the billionaire art collector Widener and the New York Metropolitan Museum! It was then that he was first suspected of forgery. In any case, without a word, he takes back a dozen paintings from his friend and replaces them with twelve other classics. At the turn of the century, he returned to Paris. He was no longer an art dealer. He was busy perfecting his own art, training himself, painting, painting and painting. Well, he became legendarily rich: his collection of paintings was unparalleled, as were his palaces and cars. He even took up motor racing, one of the first Frenchmen to do so. He also married well, marrying the daughter of the owner of Germany's largest auction house. They had two children, and although they divorced, his wife remained with him until her death. The survey exhibition of his own paintings in 1913 was a major event in Paris, which was also considered the world capital of painting. The critics hailed him as an important representative of Expressionism. By this time, his real name was Leonardus Nardus - at least officially, as the press and people on the street referred to him only as the 'Fifty Million Man'.
His life was full of twists and turns. He had loved fencing since his school days, and when he won a small competition in the Netherlands during a visit home in 1911, he suddenly found himself in his home country's Olympic dueling team.
A year later, in Stockholm, they were stopped on the verge of gold, but won the small final to take bronze. It wasn't Nardus's fault, though, because he won all his duels. He was living in Barcelona at the time. As he explained, his daily life was so monotonous that he had to travel to Africa to defend himself. The Catalan city served as a base for these journeys. He made three research trips to Algeria and two to Egypt, but the real discovery for him was Tunisia. He returned there again and again, even building a small castle on the beach, before retiring there permanently at the age of 53.
After the outbreak of the First World War, he returned to the Netherlands and organised his business from a small village called Blaricum. By auctioning off his own paintings, he "mobilised" the Belgian and French Red Crosses with the money raised. As a donation, he set up frontline ambulance units of revolutionary importance. Then, with the "outbreak" of peace, he seems to have lost his motivation. He entrusted his vast collection of priceless treasures to his friend van Buuren in the Netherlands and retired in 1921 to his secret private paradise in Tunisia, his small palace in La Marsa. For the time being, so to speak. Sometimes he still travelled, mainly back to France, mostly for chess tournaments and meetings. Then permanently from 1930. He never left Tunisia, even though the Germans deported him in 1941, then killed his friend, confiscated his collection and the best pieces went straight to Göring. Most of his fortune is gone, but many of his countries are grateful for his selfless attraction. He continued to be a celebrity, though not luxuriously, but still lived well as one of Tunisia's greatest painters. He was surrounded by his daughters, his divorced wife and his loyal friends and admirers. He died in 1955, at the age of eighty-eight, in the pink walls of the seaside villa he had designed, Lea Flory.
In the midst of many changes, perhaps only two motifs remained constant throughout his life: painting and chess. It is up to the esteemed reader to judge that he deserved attention in both and was rightly considered one of the best. A valuable self-portrait and the game that first brought his name to the chess world bear witness to this.
Now that we have been able to follow Leonardus Nardus on his tortuous path to wealth, world fame and himself, and then back again, through the summits of the art world to his obscure Tunisian retreat, it is time to look at what was left behind: the world of his paintings and chess games. Not to mention the legends that have always surrounded his person. Even his performance is no less rich and meaningful - and, of course, contradictory and enigmatic - than his life itself.
His magnificent victory over Grandmaster Marshall (1877-1944), which established his reputation in the chess world, found an unexpected sequel. He swept the American matador off his feet, and they immediately became lifelong friends.
Until Marshall's death he was a regular guest in Paris, the Riviera, Tunis - Nardus's residences - sometimes with his family. He dedicated his books to him and regularly published the Dutch games with his own commentaries. Like the next two.
On a lighter note, Marshall played his first doubles match against Nardus after losing the World Championship. This was also the reason for the previous matches. The new friends also helped each other with their social duties and roles. For example, the following board game was the highlight of a charity event.
The third member of the winning triumvirate, B. Hallegua (1880-?, Turkish Master), deserves to be brought out of complete obscurity. He appeared in Paris a few months before this match. He played in three races and we find him further up the table. For the first time, he finished behind Marshall and Aljechin, then second behind small names in the Café de la Régence. Finally, in Mannheim, he took a commanding lead in the interrupted main tournament, ahead of all the later world stars. Then he was swallowed up in the chaos of the world war.
Back to Nardus: Our hero has already excelled with his game in America.
He himself took part in the competitions of his environment, and not without success.
Although, as we have seen, he played memorably himself, he made his name immortal in the chess world as an organiser and patron. Rich, speaks five languages, irresistible and knows no impossible! Sponsor of many competitions, including several Monte Carlo tournaments and the French championship. Marshall was also often helped by Nardus' money and connections. The Polish-born French grandmaster David Janowski (1868-1927) owed his entire career to him. He also made his two World Championship matches against Lasker possible by providing the venue and financial resources. Their important and fruitful relationship in terms of chess history (and Lasker's wallet) was ended by the flamboyant world champion candidate when, after losing a game in a tournament in 1915, he was irritated by his patron's benevolent advice. Janowski told the millionaire to shut up: "A chess idiot shouldn't be giving him advice"! However, in a joint competition, even in their party against each other, he was able to find out that he was not exactly dealing with an idiot.
Janowski's ungrateful and humiliating opinion alienates him from the world of chess. From then on he only works to promote Arab chess in Tunis and elsewhere, mostly in the company and with the help of Marshall. The games remain for him, but he is also suspected of being a dealer. He spreads the world's richest offer of Dutch classics in America, earns millions of dollars - at the exchange rate of the 19th century! But opinions differ on the originality of some of the paintings sold. Several of his Vermeer and Rembrandt canvases show fresh traces of paint. He bought them back without a word. His daughters later claimed that their father was only a collector and not a forger. According to them, the layer that had not dried was the rest of the image painted on the original as a camouflage. When the accusation followed him to Europe, he also stopped trading. After that, he just painted more and more.
After the war, he left Europe behind. Leonardus Nardus closes the doors of his Tunisian empire forever. Those who seek will find, he is no longer looking for anything. The life's work of the greatest Tunisian painter.
When he dies, everyone will slowly forget him. But his life is entertaining, instructive, valuable and unrepeatable for us too.
