Career
He is credited with popularising the Dutch artist January 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. 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 United States. All three were bought by American millionaire John Wanamaker. A public dispute with Doctor Abraham Bredius over the attribution to Rembrandt of the Woman Taken in Adultery sold by Sedelmeyer to the Weber collection resulted in Sedelmeyer"s justificatory pamphlet, 1912.
Sedelmeyer"s collection was dispersed at a series of sales in Paris.
He had five daughters.