Showing posts with label Hildebrand Gurlitt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hildebrand Gurlitt. Show all posts

Apr 27, 2022

Gurlitt Status: source German Lost Art Foundation website April 27 2022


What are the results of a decade of provenance research into the origins of the stash of artworks found in the home of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of Hitler's art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt? 

The German Lost Art Foundation publishes online a selection color coded Green, Yellow or Red from the "Provenienzrecherche Gurlitt".

At present, only four are coded RED. A whopping 615 are coded YELLOW. And 28 have received the GREEN code. As for the artworks that have not been coded, there is a note:

After the research reports on works originally suspected of Nazi looting have successfully undergone an expert review, they are approved by the board of the project sponsor. The final note summarizes the key data and research findings on the work and completes the Object Record Excpert (ORE). Then the investigated artwork is assigned to one of the categories of the agreement. Works that are classified as so-called "Degenerate Art" with a clearly unencumbered origin and the family collection* do not undergo a review and therefore do not receive a final note.

*The family holdings are works that are attributed to the Gurlitt family because they were either created after 1945, were created by family members, or can be directly attributed because of personal dedications

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Below are the  artworks in each color category:

May 20, 2021

Readings in Nazi looted art: The Rape of Europa by Lynn Nicholas


Published in 1995, Lynn Nicholas' book The Rape of Europa was one of the first to investigate Hitler's massive looting of artworks. Many archives have opened since then and progress with digitization of source documents as well as and museum collections databases following the Washington Declaration have made new material available. 
It is nevertheless interesting to reread Nicholas' book for its insights, especially since the book was published nearly twenty years before the Gurlitt stash was discovered.

Below are a couple of brief extracts.



 "Voss would now channel his purchase funds, which would surpass those spent by Posse, through his own trusted agents, principal among whom was Hildebrand Gurlitt..."

- The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas


"Despite their disgust the OSS and MFAA men were human. Craig Smyth, who later had to supervise the house arrest of Hermann Voss, found it difficult to treat so eminent a scholar as a criminal and had him report daily to someone else. Monuments officer Charles Parkhurst, sent to question the widow of Hans Posse, whom he found living on the proceeds of sales of the pathetic contents of two suitcases of family bibelots, described her as a “gentle, elderly person” and broke off his interrogation when she began to weep. In the few answers she did provide it was clear that she was very proud of her husband’s accomplishments. She even showed Parkhurst photographs of Hitler at Posse’s state funeral, but of his actual transactions she clearly knew nothing."

The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas


 "Plaut doubted that Bruno Lohse had really known the extent of Goering’s evildoing and noted that both he and Fräulein Limberger had become despondent when all was revealed. Rousseau and Faison too, after weeks of questioning Miss Limberger, were convinced that despite the fact that she had read the damning daily correspondence from Hofer to Goering, she bore no blame. When they had finished with her, Faison could not bring himself to leave her at the squalid internment camp to which she had been assigned and instead asked her where she would like to go. She named the Munich dealer Walter Bornheim, he of the suitcases full of francs, and a principal supplier to both Linz and Goering. Faison consented, and left her at the military post in Gräfelfing, where Bornheim lived."


The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn Nicholas

 available on Amazon