May 21, 2018

Art Provenance Research Red Flags: Alexander Ball

Art Looting Investigation Unit Detailed Interrogation Report of Karl Haberstock (DIR 13) on refugee art dealer Alexander Ball "The implications of such a revelation are exceedingly grave, and BALL should be brought to account." However Alexander Ball and his brother Richard had already reached America.
source: War Department Strategic Services Report DIR 13
https://dfs.ny.gov/consumer/holocaust/history_art_looting_restitution/The%20Allies/OSS%20and%20the%20ALIU/ALIU%20Reports/karl_haberstock.pdf

Alexander Ball, also known as Alex Ball, A. Ball, A & R Ball, and Ball Galleries, was a Berlin art dealer who became a refugee and, unfortunately, worked closely with notorious Nazi art looter Karl Haberstock, helping him to locate Jewish collections for spoliation.


A Ball's activities are documented by the Art Looting Investigation Unit in several reports, including the Final Report Red Flag List of Names and the Detailed Interrogation Report (DIR) Number 13 of Karl Haberstock.

It is noteworthy how poorly Alexander Ball is documented and referenced today in art history dictionaries, encyclopedias, and art reference databases.

Art that passed through his hands landed in major museums. Any provenance or ownership history that contains his name in any of its forms deserves a closer look, with special scrutiny for items listed on the Nazi Era Internet Portal and items with gaps or other red flags in their provenance.

Below are a few mentions of Alexander Ball in historical sources as well as a few references for him.

Art Looting Investigation Unit Red Flag List of Names

Ball, Alexander. Paris, 9 rue Royale Aix en Provence New York (?). German Jewish refugee dealer. Intermediary for Haberstock in the sale of pictures from the unoccupied zone. Also believed to have informed on the whereabouts of prominent Jews, notably Guy de Rothschild. Believed to be in the United States.

de Beauperthuys, Simone le. Paris, 6 ave de la Grande Armee. Secretary of Alexander Ball and intermediary for Ball with Haberstock, to whom she offered pictures of doubtful origin. Also represented Fischer, for whom she signed a receipt to Bornheim in Paris, July 4 1941.

Literature and Sources that Mention Alexander Ball or A & R Ball : Part 1


from Oral history interview with Eugene V. Thaw,  2007 October 1-2, Smithsonian Archives of American Art:


"I went to see a couple of older refugee dealers who had an apartment in the Dorsett Hotel, which was torn down for the new Museum of Modern Art. It was on 54th Street and Madison. And the Dorsett Hotel had an apartment there which was a showroom for two men. I don't know what their first names were, but the firm was A&R Ball. And they had furniture, mostly good French furniture. But they also had a whole bunch of drawings by or attributed to Rembrandt from the collection of Friedrich August of Saxony. One went to the Lehmann Collection, and one went to the Rhode Island School of Design, RISD [Providence], and one narrow landscape, which I have upstairs on the wall, went to me for $3,500. But I didn't have $3,500. They let me pay $300 a month until it was paid off. .... If I had $1,000 more, I could have bought some more Rembrandts. They had a box had about 12 of them.

https://www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_274662

from GOOGLE search for Alexander Ball...


Karinhall - Page 3 - Axis History Forum

https://forum.axishistory.com › Axis History › Propaganda, Culture & Architecture

Jun 26, 2004 - ... York dealer, Alexander Ball, who has been identified as a wartime collaborator who helped Nazi art dealers in France identify and locate art ..


The Faustian Bargain: The Art World in Nazi Germany

https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=0198029683
Jonathan Petropoulos - 2000 - ‎History
The opposition of many art dealers to this important international agreement is ... In some cases, such as the Germanborn Alexander Ball, who worked in Paris ...

The Unseen - Page 257 - Google Books Result

https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=096660217X
Lee Driver - 2004 - ‎Fiction
“He was a French Jew who had an extensive art collection Hitler stole. ... Then there was a guy by the name of Alexander Ball, a New York art dealer, who ...

International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR)-Case Summary ...

www.ifar.org › ... › World War II-Era/Holocaust Related Art Loss
In 1952, the painting resurfaced in New York at the gallery of Alexander Ball, an art dealer identified by the U.S. as a Nazi collaborator who assisted the Nazis in ...


Hermann Göring and the Nazi Art Collection: The Looting of Europe’s ...

https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=0786489553
Kenneth D. Alford - 2013 - ‎History
Alexander Ball and his brother, Richard, who was living in Marseilles, left France ... but as an art dealer in good standing, she was automatically a member of the ...


Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945-1946 and ALIU Red ...

https://www.lootedart.com/MVI3RM469661


Dealers. Specialists in 16th to 19th century painting and graphic arts. ...... Secretary of Alexander Balland intermediary for Ball with Haberstock, to whom she ...

The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third ...

https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=0307739724
Lynn H. Nicholas - 2009 - ‎History
When Wildenstein suggested that dollars would be better, Haberstock ... From the brothers Ball,Alexander and Richard, originally of Berlin, who soon left for ...

Kunstraub und Kunstschutz, Band I: Eine Dokumentation

https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=3833489758 - Translate this page
Günther Haase - 2008 - ‎Art thefts
O. Simon, 17 Boulevard Auguste Raynaud, Nizza, bot Haberstock durch Engel einen Raffael an.Alexander Ball unterstützte Haberstock im nicht besetzten ...



Au nom de l'art, 1933-1945: Exils, solidarités et engagements

https://books.google.fr/books?isbn=2213683301 - Translate this page
Limore Yagil - 2015 - ‎History
Il travaille avec les Allemands, Haberstock, Fisher et Loeb. Il en va de même pour Alexander Ball qui, basé à AixenProvence, sert d'intermédiaire pour ...

[PDF]Karl Haberstock, May 1946 - New York State Department of Financial ...

https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumer/holocaust/history_art.../karl_haberstock.pdf


A former Jerlin dealer, :BALL bad be~n a r&tugee in laris shortly before the, war and had ... of the aame letter of 3 June 1941 ·to HABaSTOOX, Alexander. ~ did.


TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART v. U | 477 F.Supp.2d 802 (2006 ...

https://www.leagle.com/decision/20061279477fsupp2d80211191

Dec 28, 2006 - ... E. Spencer, Toledo, OH, Philip J. Smith, New .York City, for Defendants. ... She sold the Painting to three prominent European art dealers, ... and Alexander Ball, were German Jews whose families owned art ... Martha Nathan continued to live in Switzerland until she died in 1958 at the age of eighty-three.

A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust: Looted Art Bibliography

https://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/biblio/ARTBIBLT.HTM

After the death of their parents, the Thorsch children sought restitution. ..... The painting was sold in 1954 by a Paris gallery to a New York City gallery where a ...... Mange De Hauke, Georges Wildenstein, Hans Wendland and Alexander Ball.

[PDF]Studienabschlussarbeiten

https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/.../Sophie_Oeckl_Julius_Boehler_...


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by SK Oeckl - ‎2015 - ‎Related articles
Kunsthandlungen Julius Böhler in München und Karl Haberstock in Berlin soll die ..... Alexander Ballund in Paris Jane Weyll im Auftrag Haberstocks nach ...

Lost Art Internet Database - Beteiligte Privatpersonen und ...

www.lostart.de/Content/.../Beauperthuys,%20Simone%20de.html


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Paris, 6 Ave. de la Grande Armée; Sekretärin von Alexander Ball und Vermittlerin zwischen Ball undHaberstock, dem sie Gemälde zweifelhaften Ursprungs zum ..


Unterschiede zwischen "nicht wissen wollen" und "wissen müssen ...

https://www.welt.de › DIE WELT


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Sep 10, 1997 - Das Gemälde war 1954 von den Wrightmans von dem New Yorker Händler Alexander Ball, der als Kollaborateur Karl Haberstocks, Hitlers ...


[PDF]MoMA and Nazi-Era Art Restitution - Spectrum: Concordia University ...

https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/982899/1/Le_MA_F2017.pdf


In Detroit Institute of Arts v. Ullin (2007), the museum asserted that Michigan’s three-yearstatute of limitations prevented the court from deciding the merits of the case.195 According to the museum, the claim was time-barred because according to Michigan law, it began accruing in1938,196 when Martha Nathan originally sold Van Gogh’s Les Bêcheurs (1889) (Figure 10) to agroup of prominent dealers – Justin Thannhauser, Alexander Ball, George Wildenstein – to afford leaving Germany. The court agreed with the museum that the claim had been filed too late,meaning that Ms. Nathan would have had to bring a claim against the museum no later than 1941,when World War II was still devastating Europe and when Ms. Nathan could not have tracked her

SEE ALSO:
KARL HABERSTOCK
HANS WENDLAND (ALIU Detailed Interrogation Report: Hans WENDLAND, 18 September 1946)
ART LOOTING INVESTIGATION UNIT FINAL REPORT AND RED FLAG LIST
ALIU DIR 13 KARL HABERSTOCK
BALL & GRAUPE
FISCHER


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