Buddha head restituted to rightful heirs

The Museum am Rothenbaum (MARKK) has restituted the head of a Buddha figure that was confiscated in 1941 during the Nazi era and acquired by the museum. The restitution agreement was signed in March. MARKK Director Prof. Dr. Barbara Plankensteiner and Commercial Director Marc von Itter have now handed over the item to the legal representatives of the community of heirs.

The head was owned by Berlin art collector Johanna “Hansi” Ploschitzki, who emigrated to the USA in 1939. Her possessions destined for shipment were confiscated by the Gestapo in the port of Hamburg in 1941 and auctioned off shortly afterwards by the bailiff’s office in Hamburg. As a result of this auction, the then Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg acquired seven East Asian artefacts and twenty-eight books. After remarrying in the USA where she lived in Los Angeles, Johanna Ploschitzki adopted the name Hansi Share and filed an application for restitution through her lawyer in 1948; this was granted through a process of reparation. The objects and books in the museum were returned to her in 1951 – except for the Buddha head: Hansi Share had no knowledge of this item’s whereabouts and the museum management did not provide honest information at the time. In the correspondence between the city’s restitution centre and the museum, the Buddha head was incorrectly listed as an “old pot”, which led the museum to state that it was “not identical”.

When MARKK Director Prof. Barbara Plankensteiner began reorganising the museum in 2017, systematic provenance research projects were initiated. The fact that the Buddha head was a case of Nazi-looted cultural property emerged back in 2019 during preparations for the exhibition “Steppes and Silk Roads”. As a result of initial research into Hansi Share’s biography and the question of why the head was not returned in 1951, the suspicion was confirmed. With funding from the German Lost Art Foundation, the project condcuted from 2021 onwards Provenienzforschung zu NS-Raubgut im Museum am Rothenbaum: Erste systematische Überprüfung ausgewählter Bestände [Provenance research into Nazi-looted property at the Museum am Rothenbaum: initial systematic examination of selected holdings] was also able to clarify the question of why the Buddha head owned by Ms. Ploschitzki had remained in the museum. The museum likewise received enquiries about the Buddha head from legal representatives in 2021, and the formal restitution process was then initiated.