News

From 20 May, Frank­furt Uni­ver­si­ty Li­brary will present the in­ter­im re­sults of its prove­nance re­search project in the ex­hi­bi­tion Stolper­seit­en – NS-Raubgut in der Uni­ver­sitäts­bib­lio­thek Frank­furt am Main.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion warm­ly con­grat­u­lates the found­ing mem­bers of the Ar­beit­skreis Prove­nien­z­forschung e.V. (Prove­nance Re­search As­so­ci­a­tion) on be­ing award­ed the Fed­er­al Cross of Mer­it on Rib­bon (Bun­desver­di­en­stkreuz am Bande). As was an­nounced last week, Ute Haug, Kat­ja Ter­lau and Ilse von Zur Mühlen will re­ceive the award in recog­ni­tion of their ser­vices to prove­nance re­search.

Some lost works of art, oth­ers their en­tire liveli­hood: in the GDR, whole col­lec­tions were ex­tort­ed from pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als, art deal­ers were forced to go out of busi­ness, and pub­lic mu­se­ums were co­erced in­to hand­ing over works of art so that the no­to­ri­ous­ly poor state could sell them to the West for for­eign cur­ren­cy. The in­jus­tice af­fect­ed cas­tle own­ers and refugees alike: many cas­es have since been set­tled by rule of law, but no thor­ough reap­praisal has been car­ried out. For this rea­son, the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg is bring­ing out an an­thol­o­gy en­ti­tled En­teignet, ent­zo­gen, verkauft (‘Ex­pro­pri­at­ed, con­fis­cat­ed, sold’) which will be of­fi­cial­ly pub­lished on 21 March 2022 and sheds schol­ar­ly light on the state-or­gan­ised con­fis­ca­tion of cul­tur­al prop­er­ty in the So­vi­et oc­cu­pa­tion zone and the GDR.

A paint­ing by artist David Te­niers the Younger (1610-1690) which went miss­ing in 1945 as a re­sult of the Sec­ond World War has been re­turned to the Old Mas­ters Pic­ture Gallery at the Staatliche Kun­st­samm­lun­gen Dres­den (Dres­den State Art Col­lec­tions, SKD). It is now to be cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly hand­ed over to the mu­se­um as­so­ci­a­tion by the Ital­ian am­bas­sador to Ger­many and the head of the Cara­binieri Com­mand for the Pro­tec­tion of Cul­tur­al Her­itage.

The Übersee-Museum in Bremen has had CT scans made of 73 presumed ancestral skulls overmodelled with wax or clay that originate from what is now Papua New Guinea. The work was carried out as part of a provenance research project being funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.

Klassik Stiftung Weimar has restituted two prints and a drawing to the heiress of Austrian-American art historian Dr. Heinrich Schwarz.

The Federal Arts Administration (Kunstverwaltung des Bundes, KVdB) has restituted the painting Bildnis eines jungen Mannes mit Schreibgerät (‘Portrait of a Young Man with Writing Utensil’), attributed to Italian artist Jacopino del Conte. The work of art was returned to the heirs of Ilse Hesselberger, who suffered persecution as a Jew under the National Socialist regime and was later murdered.

The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion views the cur­rent de­vel­op­ment of the war in Ukraine with great con­cern. It con­demns the at­tack on Ukraine by the Rus­sian side and calls for an im­me­di­ate end to the war as well as a swift res­o­lu­tion of the con­flict be­tween the states con­cerned.

A pensive young woman crouches in front of delicate green foliage, a white horse stands in the background: “It’s an unusual picture that gives you quite a bit to reflect on,” says Lela K., commenting on a watercolour painting by Hans Thoma. The 76-year-old says she remembers it hanging in a prominent place in her parents’ living room when she was a child.

For the first time, the Hessischer Museumsverband (Hessian Museums Association, HMV) will be carrying out a First Check for Nazi-looted cultural property at four museums in Hesse.