A search in the Lost Art Database led to the restitution of the painting Sinnendes Mädchen/Frau mit Schimmel (‘Pensive Girl/Woman with White Horse) to the heirs.
Lost Art Database
Nazi-looted cultural property

From lost art research to restitution: how a painting from the Smoschewer Collection found its way to the heirs

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.

But it was on­ly by search­ing the in­ter­net that Lela K. found out the name of the paint­ing and where it came from – af­ter she stum­bled across an en­try in the Lost Art Database: here the paint­ing from her par­ents’ es­tate is list­ed as a search re­quest and bears the ti­tle Sin­nen­des Mäd­chen / Frau mit Schim­mel (‘Sensual Girl/Wom­en with White Horse’) (Lost Art-ID 302432). It was con­fis­cat­ed from Jew­ish art col­lec­tor fam­i­ly Smoschew­er in Wrocław (Bres­lau) in 1939. Sub­se­quent­ly sold on the art mar­ket, it has been con­sid­ered lost ev­er since. So Lela K. dis­cov­ered she may have had Nazi-loot­ed art in her pos­ses­sion.

“I was quite tak­en aback when I saw who the pic­ture be­longed to,” she says. She im­me­di­ate­ly wrote to the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion, who put her in touch with the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Smoschew­er fam­i­ly’s heirs. Her sus­pi­cions were con­firmed: the wa­ter­colour that hung in her par­ents’ home had be­longed to the Smoschew­er fam­i­ly, who were per­se­cut­ed by the Nazis. Wrocław in­dus­tri­al­ist Leo Smoschew­er died in 1938 and his com­pa­ny was “Aryanized” by the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists. Find­ing her­self hope­less­ly im­pov­er­ished, his wife Elise took her own life in 1939.

To this day, Lela K. is un­able to ex­plain how a paint­ing with such a sto­ry be­hind it found its way in­to her par­ents’ house, since her moth­er and fa­ther had al­ways been Nazi op­po­nents. For this rea­son alone, she and her sis­ter agreed right away: “We would def­i­nite­ly give it back – there was no doubt about that.” If our par­ents had known where the paint­ing came from, they would have done the same thing,” says Lela K. She hand­ed the paint­ing over to the heirs’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the end of last year: “The paint­ing be­longs where it was wrong­ful­ly tak­en from.”

The Lost Art Database cur­rent­ly con­tains a fur­ther 34 Search Re­quests re­lat­ing to items from the Leo Smoschew­er art col­lec­tion.

Lost Art Database
A search in the Lost Art Database led to the restitution of the painting Sinnendes Mädchen/Frau mit Schimmel (‘Pensive Girl/Woman with White Horse) to the heirs.