... Open Art Data ...: EHRI

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Oct 24, 2025

Holocaust art research digital tools: Lempertz and artworks listed in the (defunct) Nazi Era Internet Portal

Art provenance research tools:

The Cologne auction house of Lempertz was included in the Art Looting Investigation Unit Red Flag list of names in 1946. In recent times, the name has appeared in connection to several claims for restitution of artworks. Until recently American museums published artworks that had gaps in their provenance 1933-1945 in a database called NEPIP (Nazi Era Provenance Internet Portal) (https://www.aam-us.org/programs/the-nazi-era-provenance-internet-portal-nepip-archive/)

This video shows artworks gathered from NEPIP and other sources that mention the word "Lempertz" in the provenance published by museums.

Note: Some of the mentions concern the German auction house. Some do not. Some concern transactions prior to 1933, others after 1933. Inclusion on the list does not mean that the artwork was looted or sold in a forced sale, only that it contains a specific word.

Link to database used in video: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/9769949/ (Enter the word or name you want to search for in the box)

German sales catalogues published by the Getty Provenance Index and Heidelberg University tend to stop or peter out after 1945, so it is very difficult to use digital tools to analyze Lempertz and other auction sales in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s when Nazi looted artworks were laundered via auction houses with little scrutiny.

Gathering mentions of Lempertz (and other auction houses) in museums provenances is one workaround for this lack of transparency.

(photo credit from MFA, Boston museum, The Cumaean Sibyl Donato Creti (Italian (Bolognese), 1671–1749) about 1730 ACCESSION NUMBER 1984.138 PROVENANCE November 23-25, 1983, anonymous (German private collector) sale, Lempertz, Cologne, lot 1482. 1984, sold by Piero Corsini, New York and London, to the MFA. (Accession Date: April 11, 1984) https://collections.mfa.org/objects/34617/the-cumaean-sibyl

Mar 7, 2021

Provenance cases for students of art history

"...the Grünbaum heirs contend that Mr. Kornfeld’s account is a fiction and that the documents are forgeries. They say it is suspicious that he did not identify Ms. Lukacs-Herzl as his supplier until nearly two decades after her death, and they contest the validity of the signatures on the records, pointing to places where Ms. Lukacs-Herzl’s name is misspelled or written in pencil...."

- William D. Cohan, Jewish Heirs Take on an Art Foundation That Rights Nazi Wrongs, NYT, Aug. 26, 2018

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READING GUIDE

Questions for students of art history

1) Why is it important to establish an accurate account of the ownership history of an artwork?

2) How to verify whether an art dealer is telling the truth or lying about the provenance an artwork he or she sold?

3) What elements in this story help to clarify an accurate sequence of events?

4) What historical knowledge is needed to make sense of these different accounts?

5) What additional information can you find from other sources that make it possible to see more clearly what really happened?

6) This NYT news story was published in 2018. What has happened since then? Do recent events shed light on who was telling the truth and who was lying? If so, how?

Jewish Heirs Take on an Art Foundation That Rights Nazi Wrongs by By William D. Cohan, Aug. 26, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/arts/design/nazi-art-egon-schiele-fritz-grunbaum.html

Dec 15, 2020

Loebl in the Kleinberger archives

Network described in the 1946 OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU) Final Report Red Flag List of Names: Ali (Allen) Loebl and Bruno Lohse

https://www.lootedart.com/MVI3RM469661

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The OSS ALIU Reports on Nazi looting networks in Europe put Allen Loebl at the center of a syndicate of art dealers trading Nazi looted art. Loebl appears in the Red Flag Name index and is mentioned in the Final report fourteen times. The ALIU investigators who drafted the Final Report specified that Loebl had close ties to Bruno Lohse, a notorious Nazi art plunderer.

At the very least, the mention of Loebl in a provenance from the Nazi era (1933-1945) should mobilise provenance researchers and Holocaust researchers to trace the full history of the artwork in question and to verify whether the artwork belonged to a Jewish collector or dealer who was persecuted when Hitler came to power.

In this context, the publication of the Kleinberger Archives represents a major step forward.

https://cdm16028.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll23/search/searchterm/loebl

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It was chiefly through LOEBL that LOHSE became familiar with the Paris art trade, and became acquainted with such other dealers and Victor MANDEL, PERDOUX and ENGEL, who operated as an informal syndicate. (See Consolidated Interrogation Report No. 3, "German Methods of Acquisition, " Dealers.)

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The Kleinberger archives are now online.

Searching is fast and easy. Results show all the mentions, as well as the artists and more.

Below is the result of a simple search for Loebl, (cousin of Kleinberger president Harry Sperling and a Red Flag Name for his involvement in selling Nazi looted art).

https://cdm16028.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll23/search/searchterm/loebl

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