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German Lost Art Foundation Berlin Branch Office
Old drawings, probably by Tintoretto, Veronese and other celebrities, origin unknown: while they were reviewing the library’s prints and drawings collection, employees at Lippe State Library came across a baffling folder containing 28 sheets dating back to the 16th to 18th centuries. Since the items did not fit the collection profile, the question arose as to how they had come into the library’s possession.
An initial search in the library archives revealed that the drawings had found their way to the library either during the Second World War or shortly after it ended. They are not owned by the library, but at the time the British military government decided that it would be best to keep them there until the rightful owners came forward or were identified. To this day, no information exists as to who they do belong to, however, so a research project has now been initiated to resolve the issue, entitled “Determining the provenance of 28 hand drawings of the 16th to 18th Century in Lippe State Library which are suspected of having been seized as a result of Nazi persecution”. Having started on 1 July 2023, the project is being funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and supported by KPF.NRW (Coordination Office for Provenance Research in North Rhine-Westphalia). In addition, the research is supported by the French Embassy (Berlin Branch) in close cooperation with colleagues working in French archives.
The drawings came to the library under director Eduard Wiegand, who presided over the state library from 1933 to 1945 and was an enthusiastic National Socialist: Wiegand had no inhibitions about adding to the library from police confiscations, for example. The records made by librarian Alfred Bergmann, who was the provisional head of the state library after Wiegand’s dismissal in 1945, show that Bergmann assumed the pictures were of “dubious” origin. Bergmann tried to determine the significance and origin of the drawings after 1945, but without success. The circumstances and Bergmann’s recollections strongly suggest that the works were unlawfully seized.
Alfred Bergmann himself interviewed local “experts” in 1945 and concluded from these conversations that the drawings could have been stolen from French apartments, a museum or a private collection. The Netherlands is also mentioned as a possible place of origin. The trail clearly led beyond Lippe and Westphalia, which is why research in French and Dutch archives is planned in addition to visits to regional archives.
Jörg Düning-Gast, Chairman of Lippe Regional Association: “If the suspicion of Nazi-looted cultural property is confirmed, it may also be possible to identify the rightful owners or their legal successors. If this is the case, the aim will be to return the drawings.”