Museum Schloss Fasanerie begins research project to investigate the art collection in possession of the House of Hesse Cultural Foundation

Al­though the mu­se­um was not es­tab­lished in Schloss Fasaner­ie un­til the 1950s, it is not pos­si­ble to en­tire­ly rule out the fact that its col­lec­tions may con­tain items ac­quired un­law­ful­ly dur­ing the Nazi era. Ini­tial in­di­ca­tions of this emerged in 2019. These in­clude two im­por­tant 18th cen­tu­ry cab­i­nets craft­ed by the fa­mous Ger­man cab­i­net­mak­er David Roent­gen, which Philipp Prince and Land­grave of Hesse (1896-1980) ac­quired in 1939 from the auc­tion of works of art by the Jew­ish col­lec­tor Rudolf von Gold­schmidt-Roth­schild. To­geth­er with about 160 oth­er ex­hibits be­long­ing to the mu­se­um, these will be sub­ject­ed to close scruti­ny in the com­ing months. Mu­se­um di­rec­tor Dr. Markus Miller wel­comes the in­ves­ti­ga­tions. “The prove­nance re­search project at Mu­se­um Schloss Fasaner­ie is one of the very first to in­volve the vol­un­tar­i­ly ex­am­i­na­tion of a large pri­vate col­lec­tion for cul­tur­al prop­er­ty seized as a re­sult of Nazi per­se­cu­tion.”

The project was ini­ti­at­ed by the board of the House of Hesse Cul­tur­al Foun­da­tion, in­clud­ing Do­na­tus Land­grave of Hesse, to­geth­er with the man­age­ment of the mu­se­um. It will seek to clar­i­fy whether there are ob­jects among Land­grave Philipp’s ac­qui­si­tions that were ex­pro­pri­at­ed dur­ing the Na­tion­al So­cial­ist era or put on the mar­ket un­der the pres­sure of per­se­cu­tion and sold be­low mar­ket price.

For this pur­pose, art his­to­ri­an Sven Pab­st­mann is ex­am­in­ing part of the col­lec­tion of paint­ings, as well as hand draw­ings, graph­ics, hand­i­craft items and fur­ni­ture.
For de­tails, see: Mu­se­um Schloss Fasaner­ie
The project