EVENT: Provenance and Restitution with Shared Knowledge Graphs September 15

 Free and open to the public - online or in person - register by Sept 12!

On September 15, the German Lost Art Foundation has graciously invited me to give a talk on Provenance and Restitution in their series "Kolloquium Provenienzforschung".

https://kulturgutverluste.de/termine/kolloquium-provenienzforschung-shared-knowledge-graphs-tool-recovering

The topic is “Shared knowledge graphs as a tool in recovering looted cultural heritage and the histories of marginalized people“. 

I hope the information provided will be helpful to cultural heritage professionals, provenance researchers, claimants, Holocaust scholars, art crime experts, museum and art market people.

(Do not let the words "knowledge graph" scare you. In this talk, I’ll show how we can connect information—people, places, artworks, events—into a kind of map of relationships. Think of it as a network of stories and connections. We can use this to retrieve lost information and to explore hidden networks over long periods of time, which is very useful for Nazi-looted art as well as other kinds of stolen or disappeared cultural heritage.) 

The event will take place at the Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste, Außenstelle Berlin, Seydelstraße 18, 10117 Berlin. 

It is also possible to join the event via Webex. (Register by Sep 12)

Registrations to:
German Lost Art Foundation
Heinrich Natho
Humboldtstr. 12 | 39112 Magdeburg
veranstaltungen@kulturgutverluste.de

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See complete announcement below

Drouot Auction Catalogues 1939-1945

Reminder: The French INHA provides a link to search the famous Drouot Auction House Catalogues

https://aucase.inha.fr/search

Searcb possibilities include

• Artist or School
• Date
• Auctioneer
• Expert
• Item category
• Texts

One can find, for example, auctions of artworks that were looted from the estates of Jewish collectors like Gentili di Giuseppe and later restituted to heirs.

Succession de M. Gentili di Giuseppe, 1re vente [...] : [vente des 23 et 24 avril 1941]

https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/idviewer/22913/15

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/old-masters-day-l18034/lot.176.html

Sothebys 2018

Manner of Alessandro Magnasco

Cardplayers by a fire

oil on canvas

59 x 44.3 cm.; 23 1/4  x 17 1/2  in. 

Provenance

With Benno Geiger, Venice, 1914;

Frederico Gentili di Giuseppe (1868–1940), Paris;

Forced sale of his deceased estate, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 23–24 April 1941, lot 53, for 20,000 FRF;

Private collection, Milan, by 1949;

On deposit in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1951–1999, inv. no. MNR 798;

Restituted to the heirs of Frederico Gentili di Giuseppe;

By whom sold ('The Collection of Federico Gentili di Giuseppe'), New York, Christie's, 27 January 2000, lot 83;

Jacob Elie Safra (b. 1948), New York;

By whom sold, ('The Collection of Jacob Elie Safra'), New York, Sotheby's, 26 January 2011, lot 32, for $130,000;

Where acquired by the present owner.

***

(Sometimes, however, it's hard to find the Drouot transaction, like for this Signac, sold by Sothebys:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2011/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-l11006/lot.3.html

Description

Paul Signac

LES TOURS VERTES, LA ROCHELLE

signed P. Signac and dated 1913 (lower right)

oil on canvas

73 by 92cm.

28 3/4 by 36 1/4 in.

Provenance

Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired in 1913)

Léonce Rosenberg, Paris (acquired on 2nd December 1913)

Clausen, Copenhagen (1920)

Leicester Galleries, London (acquired circa 1920)

A. Metthey, Paris (1927)

Gaston Lévy, Paris (acquired by 1933)

Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 15th December 1943, lot 97

Galerie Robert Schmit, Paris

Galerie de l'Elysée, Paris

Acquired from the above by the family of the present owners in 1953

(Maybe an art historian can find it in the digital auction catalogue?)

***

More digital resources for art historians and provenance researchers are listed on the French Agorha site: https://agorha.inha.fr/database/76

The French INHA (Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art) digital library includes over 6,000 20th century  auction catalogues. French catalogues are from Drouot - 3,542, Christie, Manson and Woods - 921, Baudoin, Henri (1876-1963) -  636, Ader, Étienne (1903-1993) - 626, Sotheby's - 286, Lair-Dubreuil, Fernand (1867-1931) - 275, Dillée, Bernard - 251, Baudoin, Denis Émile Pierre - 249, Desvouges, André (1871-19??) - 249, Paulme, Marius (1863-1928) -239, Bottolier-Lasquin, Georges (18??-1932) - 228, Damidot, Paul - 198.  (lootedart.com)

Url to search:

https://bibliotheque-numerique.inha.fr/collection/?&refine[Categories][]=Imprimés&refine[Categories][]=Imprimés$$$Catalogues%20de%20vente$$$20e%20siècle

Knoedler's ledgers: mapping missing entry dates and seller names

 

data source: Getty Provenance Index GitHub Knoedler file  13 Dec 2017

(analysis performed  on CSV file before GPI remodel)

Note:  Transactions prior to 1925 or in the Stockbooks 1-7 have been removed from this file, reducing the number of transactions from 40,250 to 13,809.  This enables us to focus on the years 1928 to 1970.

Three huge spikes in activity pop out: 1951, 1928 and 1942. But before we examine what happened in those years to create such a spike, we must deal with a problem of missing data.

Of the above transactions, 1,746 lack an entry date year. That's over 10%! More than even our highest peak!

What to do? Data scientists often "clean" datasets by eliminating rows with incomplete data. That is exactly what we will NOT do. Instead of eliminating these rows of incomplete data from our data set, we will focus on them. 

Why are these 1,746 transactions missing the entry date year? Do they have anything else in common?

What other indicators might supply us with the missing information? Proxies, in short, for the entry date year. (Names associated with specific date ranges, for example).

The Stock Book Numbers 1928-1970

The Stock Book Numbers for transactions with no Entry Date Year

We see that most of the missing years are from Stock Book 11.  

What else can we learn about the profile of the missing dates? We can compare the most frequent nationalities of all transactions 1928-1970 

to the nationalities of the transactions missing entry date years:

The largest contingent are American.  We don't understand this but will file it away, hoping that it might Make sense later.

What about the sellers? And here we are in for a bit of a surprise.

Of the 1,746 transactions that have no entry year, the vast majority - 1,481 - also have no seller.

What kind of ledgers are these that Knoedler was keeping, with neither year nor seller? 

Which ledgers are most concerned by this double absence?

With 1,469 mysterious transactions, it's Stock Book 11. 

Who are the joint owners listed in Book 11 ledger entrees which have no entry date or seller name?

(filter: Joint owner appear at least twice)

Joint Own Auth 1	Count	Knoedler Numbers in Book 11
Pinakos, Inc. (Rudolf Heinemann)	84	A6420, A5321, A4774, A6680, A5326, A5434, A1825, A1834, A1845, A1849, A1943, A1944, A1945, A1946, A2523, A2730, A2770, A2774, A2795, A2964, A3026, A3029, A3044, A3049, A3274, A3292, A3300, A3312, A3527, A5250, A5286, A5467, A5469, A5515, A5624, A5708, A5730, A4542, A4824, A4839, A4840, A4843, A4844, A4849, A4851, A4854, A4898, A4920, A4937, A4940, A4955, A5117, A5213, A5944, A5948, A5960, A5963, A5964, A5965, A5982, A6010, A6122, A6777, A6679, A6593, A6548, A6530, A6501, A6500, A6430, A6415, A6318, A6310, A6299, A6295, A6294, A7059, A6998, A6970, A6932, A7109, A5602, A5603, A6826
Hirschl & Adler Galleries	37	A3815, A4107, A3884, A3886, A3873, A3875, A3876, A3880, A3882, A3883, A3885, A3888, A5284, A5319, A5560, A5561, A5737, A5738, A5788, A5806, A5807, A5928, A6102, A6738, A6727, A6726, A6722, A6721, A6704, A6651, A7047, A7046, A7021, A7005, A7004, A6972, A7125
Spark, Victor David	25	A6144, A3188, A5745, A4448, A4923A, A4923C, A4923D, A4923H, A4923I, A4923K, A4923L, A4923M, A4923O, A4923P, A4923Q, A4923R, A4923S, A4923T, A4923W, A5016, A6013, A6018, A6138, A6145, A6147
Berggruen (Heinz), Galerie & Cie	23	A5750, A6640, A7031, A7030, A7029, A6899, A7119, A7120, A6070, A6073, A6114, A6112, A6150, A7018, A7017, A7016, A7015, A6844, A6843, A6443, A6350, A6347, A6641
Schempp, (Theodore), & Co.	13	A6934, A5188, A6684, A7066, A7002, A7001, A7000, A6942, A6939, A6935, A7116, A7130, A7131
Kennedy Galleries, Inc.	13	A4936, A7127, A7128, A7129, A5581, A6272, A6273, A6274, A7124, A7135, A5074, A5075, A6669
Fine Arts Associates	11	A5304, A5209, A6764, A6739, A7039, A6869, A7114, A7115, A7133, A7134, A6922
The A.B. Closson Jr. Co.	9	A5079, A5080, A5082, A5083, A5085, A5086, A5087, A5088, A5089
Betty McLean Gallery	9	A5288, A5290, A5291, A5292, A5294, A5299, A4684, A4685, A5055
E. and A. Milch	7	A3655, A3855, A3857, A3858, A4635, A6824, A7136
Marlborough-Gerson Gallery	7	A7078, A7080, A7082, A7081, A7083, A7077, A7079
Pearlman, Henry	6	A7086, A7087, A7089, A7090, A7091, A7088
Kleemann Galleries	6	A4617, A6432, A6391, A6390, A6332, A6331
De Hauke & Co.	5	A6763, A7100, A7101, A7103, A7110
Frank Perls Gallery	5	A6506, A6230, A6762, A6743, A6435
Balay, Roland	5	A3834, A3835, A3836, A3837, A3838
Latendorf Bookshop	5	A6249, A6250, A6251, A6252, A6253
Agnew's	5	A5435, A6098, A6099, A6228, A7056
Old Print Shop, The	4	A5714, A5716, A5718, A4672E
Weitzner, Julius H.	4	A6921, A5703, A6534, A6929
Charell, Ludwig	3	A6379, A6378, A6377
Babcock Galleries	3	A3413, A3661, A5072
Galerie les Tourettes (Otto Wertheimer)	2	A5281, A7117
John F. Fleming Rare Book Co.	2	A6388, A6387
Galerie des Arts Anciens et Modernes	2	A6135, A6313
SUTTON, HILDA	2	A3383, A3395
Louis Leon and Co.	2	A6801, A6525
Michelotti, M.	2	A5320, A4049
Ward Eggleston Galleries	2	A5991, A5992
Kernochan, Katherine Lorillard	2	A2144, A2145
Ackermann, (Arthur), and Son	2	A3600, A2556
Frederick A. Stern Inc.	2	A3068, A3206
Weil, (André), Galerie	2	A6701, A6795
STRÖLIN, ALFRED	2	A6478, A6477
Abdy, Robert Henry Edward, Sir, 5th Bart.	2	A7009, A6967
Colnaghi's	2	A1982, A3060

Where else do these Knoedler numbers appear? What do they tell us?

Can the recent publication of the new Getty Provenance Index on linked data principles help us to go further in the analysis of the information that is missing from the original Knoedler ledgers? How might we do this?

tbc...

DATASET: Names in new Getty Provenance Index

 In searching the new Getty Provenance Index, it can be useful to know the "preferred name" as recorded in ULAN, especially when performing a facetted search in the Knoedler files.

Below is a Dataset of names that may be helpful.  The data was retrieved on May 24, 2025. 

The uploaded CSV file contains 61,418 rows and 7 columns. It contains entities (mostly people or organizations) associated with the Getty Provenance Index, particularly those classified as E21_Person or E74_Group in the CIDOC CRM ontology.

Column Name	Description	Non-null Count
URI Linkedart json	The Linked.Art JSON URI for the entity	61,418
name	Preferred name of the person or organization	61,418
ulan	Getty ULAN (Union List of Artist Names) identifier	26,648
starId	Internal Getty Provenance Index identifier (STAR system)	28,500
birthYear	Birth year (if known, usually for people)	15,221
biography	Biographical note or description	10,521

Download Dataset (CSV)

(8.3 MB)

Frederick Mont in RKD records

Frederick Mont, AKA Fritz Mondschein or Galerie Sanct Lucas, is a name that has popped up in Nazi looted art and in forgeries, and, for this reason, a name of interest for provenance researchers and art crime specialists.

Below are artworks in the RKD data that mention "Mont, Frederick" retrieved by a Sparql query at: 

https://rkd.triply.cc/rkd/RKD-Knowledge-Graph/sparql

To see the full provenance click on the RKD link.

(Art Historians: Note the number of Art Looting Investigation Unit Red Flag Names that appear in the full provenances)

See also:Art Dealers in Provenance: Frederick Mont at the Toledo Museum of Art and LACMA 

and Frederick Mont or Mondschein in Provenances of the Getty Provenance Index Public Collections Database 

and Fritz Mont, Frederick Mondschein and Galerie Sanct Lucas

Frederick Mont in RDK database provenances