Graupe in provenance texts of American museums

The Paul Graupe auction house was a key player in sales of Jewish art collections during the Nazi-era.

In this post, we look at a selection of  88 artworks in American museums that mention "Graupe" in the provenance text.

 Some texts refer to sales prior to 1933. Some texts specify that an artwork was NOT sold at Graupe's. And some texts clearly refer to sales at Graupe's during the Nazi era. Some texts are factual while others contain speculative language.

Holocaust victims in the provenances include:

- Friedrich Gutmann (murdered)

- Max Silberberg (murdered)

- Rosa Oppenheimer (murdered)

Where possible, post-Graupe dealers and owners are highlighted in yellow.

Graupe	Museum
43	National Gallery of Art
26	Metropolitan Museum of Art
7	Yale University Art Gallery
3	Harvard Art Museums
2	J. Paul Getty Museum
2	Cleveland Museum of Art
2	Philadelphia Museum of Art
2	Art Institute of Chicago
1	The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
88

Minneapolis Institute of Art provenance status for selected artworks - mostly European

The Minneapolis Institute of Art publishes provenances for some artworks but not for others.

Below is a list of selected artworks at Artsmia.

Provenances, where present, are from April 20, 2024)

Download Data in  CSV for research

Kurt Feldhäusser or Weyhe in provenance of artworks in American museums

Source Url	Title	Artist	Credit Line	Acc Num	Provenance
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/483489	Crouching Woman with Crab	Aristide Maillol | Crouching Woman with Crab | French | The Metropolitan Museum of Art	Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982	1984.433.35	Mr. Bruno and Mrs. Sadie Adriani Bruno and Sadie Adriani, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif., [ Buchholz Gallery } [Buchholz Gallery, New York], E. Weyhe Gallery [E. Weyhe, New York, probably on loan to the Whitney Studio, New York, sold in March 1924 to Thayer], [probably on loan to Whitney Studio, sold in March 1924 to Thayer], Scofield Thayer (1924–d. 1982, on extended loan to the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., as part of the Dial Collection, 1936–82, his bequest to MMA), Worcester Art Museum
https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/296387	Madame Fisher | Harvard Art Museums	Diego Rivera, Mexican (Guanajuato, Mexico 1886 - 1957 Mexico City)	Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Meta and Paul J. Sachs	1965.437	Recorded Ownership History;[The E. Weyhe Gallery, New York, New York], sold, to Meta and Paul J. Sachs (L. 2091), Cambridge, Massachusetts, bequest, to Fogg Art Museum, 1965.
https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/225571	Proun 12E | Harvard Art Museums	El Lissitzky, Russian (Pochinok, Russia 1890 - 1941 Moscow, Russia)	Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Association Fund	BR49.303	Recorded Ownership History;Kurt Feldhäusser, Berlin, bequest, to Marie Luise Feldhäusser, 1945, sold, [E. Weyhe Gallery, New York], sold, to Busch-Reisinger Museum, 1949.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/impressionist-modern-art-evening-sale-n09930/lot.22.html	Das Soldatenbad (Artillerymen)	Ernst Ludwig Kirchner		NOTE: Claim for Nazi-looted art and Restitutionto heirs of Alfred Flechtheim	Provenance;Galerie Ludwig Schames, Frankfurt;Alfred Flechtheim, Dusseldorf (acquired from the above in 1919);Städtisches Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf (acquired by donation in 1928-29);Alfred Flechtheim, Dusseldorf (acquired from the above by exchange in 1930 and left in the custody of his niece, Rosi Hulisch, on his departure from Germany in 1933);Kurt Feldhäusser, Berlin (acquired in 1938);Marie Luise Feldhäusser, Berlin (by inheritance from her son, above, in 1945);Erhard Weyhe Gallery, New York (acquired from the above in 1949);Mr. & Mrs. Morton D. May, St. Louis (acquired by 1952);The Museum of Modern Art, New York (a gift from the above in 1956);The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (by exchange from the above in 1988);Acquired by restitution from the above in 2018

Frank Perls and Degas posthumous art

"the posthumous impressions from his canceled plates by the Frank Perls Gallery began after 1939 some twenty-two years after Edgar Degas' death in 1917."

"Edgar Degas died in 1917. The ten so-called "sculptures in bronze" and "etchings" in the Denver Art Museum's February 11 to May 2018 Degas: A Passion for Perfection exhibition were posthumously cast and impressed after 1919 till as late as 1981, some 2 to 64 years after Edgar Degas' death in 1917."

read full article :

Degas: A Passion for FAKES at the Denver Art Museum

GARY ARSENEAU

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Related reading:

https://rosettaapp.getty.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=FL4157601

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/152785/the-lecturer-le-lecteur


http://garyarseneau.blogspot.com/2013/03/degas-forgeries-bait-and-switch-at.html

http://garyarseneau.blogspot.com/2018/03/making-wrong-impression-arthur-ross.html

How to use information in the provenance texts of Nazi looted art that has been restituted to find other Nazi-looted artworks

This Nazi-looted painting was restituted in 2016. 
https://www.lostart.de/de/Verlust/526702

Often, when a painting is restituted, it is the conclusion of a long and arduous process of archival research to establish the itinerary of the painting and the different actors involved in its looting (or sale, or transfer, or translocation). 

What happens if we take the NAMES that appear in the provenance AFTER an artwork has left the possession of the persecuted Jewish owner and plug them in to some powerful digital tools to check other provenance texts for their presence?

Could this application of digital tools provide clues that lead to other Nazi-looted artworks?

If artworks could speak they would tell you what Nazis did to these art collectors

"Dr Lillie has explained the Kafkaesque system for the confiscation of goods, which usually worked like this. When a Jew applied to emigrate, in theory only 25% of his goods went to the State. An inventory was submitted and the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz decided which works of art were of national importance and these were “made secure”, ie; confiscated. It was rare, however, for what was left to be reunited with the owner, who had usually already fled to an unknown destination. Instead, it sat in Nazi-owned warehouses, which sold the goods to pay the “storage charges” that the owner obviously could not cover." 

- A portrait, person by person, item by item, of a society wiped out

Anna Somers Cocks, 1 July 2004 The Art Newspaper, Book review of Sophie Lillie's Was Einmal War

Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten, Kunstsammlungen Wiens (Czernin Verlag, Vienna, 2003) 1,440 pp, 354 b/w ills, €69 (hb), ISBN 3707600491

"This important book gives a full documentation for the Jewish art collectors of Vienna whose goods and lives were targeted by the Nazis"

Austrian Jewish art collectors who were dispossessed by the Nazis 

 Leon and Marianne Abramowicz,

 Bernhard Altmann,

 Hans and Helene Amon,

 Otto and Clara Anninger,

 Gustav Arens,

 Fritz and Anna Unger, 

Felix and Lise Haas,

 Carl and Rosa Askonas,

 Stefan Auspitz,

 Theodor and Angela Auspitz-Artenegg,

 Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt,

 Richard and Paula Beer-Hofmann,

 Ernst and Irma Benedikt,

 Ludwig Bettelheim-Gabillon,

 Rudolf and Martha Bittmann,

 Josef and Gusti Blauhorn, 

Hugo and Malvine Blitz,

 Wilhelm and Gertrude Blitz,

 Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer,

 Victor and Alice Blum, 

Oscar Bondy (fled to Switzerland, died in NY in 1944)

 Julius and Paula Breuer, 

Otto and Lilly Brill,

 Julius and Margarethe Buchstab,

 Paul and Mary Cahn-Speyer,

 Edwin and Caroline Czeczowiczka,

 Arthur and Irma Czeczowiczka, 

Georg Duschinsky, 

Ernst and Fanny Egger, 

Lothar and Eveline Egger-Möllwald, 

Alfred and Valerie Eisler,

 Hermann and Hortense Eissler,

 Berta Morelli,

 Hans and Lucie Engel,

 Viktor and Emilie Ephrussi,Charlotte Epstein,

 Rudolf Ernst,

 Gertrud Felsöványi,

 Adele Fischel,

 Josef Freund,

 Wilhelm Freund,

 Hugo and Hilde Friedmann,

 Hermann and Elsa Gall,

 Paul and Martha Gerngross,

 Robert and Frida Gerngross,

 Emil Geyer,

 David and Lilly Goldmann,

 Philipp, Cornelia and Marie Gomperz,

 Fritz and Lilly Grünbaum,

 Karl and Stephanie Grünwald,

 Rudolf and Marianne Gutmann,

 Leo and Helene Hecht,

 Valerie Heissfeld,

 Wilhelm and Daisy Hellmann,

 Franz and Marie Louise Herzberg,

 Fritz and Gertrud Hirsch,

 Ernst and Martha Hirsch,

 Adolf and Hilda Hochstim, 

Franz Josef and Vally Honig,

 Josef Franz and Hermin Hupka,

 Bruno Jellinek,

 Otto and Fanny Kallir-Nirenstein,

 Siegfried and Irma Kantor,

 Emil and Helene Karpeles-Schenker,

 Irma Ketschendorf,

 Benedikt and Emilie Klapholz,

 Norbert and Serafine Klinger,

 Isidor and Camilla Kohn,

 Nettie Königstein,

 Felix Kornfeld

Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus

Wilhelm Viktor and Marianne Krausz,

 Hans Krüger,

 Moriz and Elsa Kuffner,

 Stephan Kuffner,

 Wilhelm and Camilla Kuffner,

 Adele Kulka,

 Wally Kulka,

 Oscar L. Ladner,

 Richard and Anna Lanyi,

 Georg and Hermine Lasus,

 August and Serena Lederer,

 Rosa Lemberger,

 Mathilde Lieben,

 Leon and Antonie Lilienfeld,

 Markus and Melanie Lindenbaum

, Fritz and Helene Löhner

, Arthur and Marianne Lourié,

 Wilhelm and Fanny Löw,

 Oscar and Irma Löwenstein,

 Alma Mahler-Werfel,

 Fritz Mandl,

 Stephan and Else Mautner,

 Edmund and Adele Mendelsohn,

 Franz Mendelsohn,

 Alice Meyszner,

 Max and Hertha Morgenstern,

 Aranka Munk,

 Oskar and Therese Neumann,

 Richard and Alice Neumann,

 Gabriele Oppenheimer,

 Ignatz and Gisela Pick,

 Moric and Irma Pick,

 Otto and Katharina Pick,

 Ernst and Gisela Pollack,

 Albert Pollak,

 Robert and Adele Pollak,

 Leopold Popper-Podhragy,

 Ernst and Ilse Popper-Podhragy, 

Arthur and Agnes Prager,

 Julius and Camilla Priester,

 Leo Prister,

 Alfred Quittner,

 Amalie Redlich,

 Anton and Marie Redlich,

 Paul and Therese Regenstreif,

 Oskar and Malvine Reichel,

 Arnim and Rosa Reichmann,

 Heinrich Reif,

 Andreas and Luise Reisinger,

 Franz and Anna Riedl,

 Heinrich and Berta Rieger, (Heinrich died in Theresienstadt camp in 1942)

Max Roden and Sascha Kronburg,

 Heinrich and Ella Rothberger,

 Moriz Rothberger,

 Alphonse and Clarice Rothschild,

 Louis Rothschild,

 Franz Rothschild,

 Franz Ruhmann,

 Emma Schiff-Suvero,

 Gustav and Louise Schoenberg,

 Ludwig and Gertrude Schüller,

 Eduard and Gisela Schweinburg,

 Arnold and Margit Löffler,

 Elkan and Abraham Silberman,

 Josef and Louise Simon,

 Marianne Singer, 

Alfred and Irmgard Sonnenfeld,

 Valentine Springer,

 Jenny Steiner,

 Klara Steiner,

 Paul and Nora Stiasny

, Georg Terramare and Erni Terrel,

 Alfons and Marie Thorsch,

 Siegfried and Antonia Trebitsch,

 Alexander and Irma Weiner,

 Leopold Weinstein

,Josefine Winter,

 Paul Wittgenstein,

 Fritz and Annie Wolff-Knize,

 Frank and Mary Wooster,

 Alexander and Luise Zemlinsky,

 Paul Zsolnay,

 Fritz and Trude Zuckerkandl

Williams College Museum of Art does not publish provenance but does publish Credit Line

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Why does the Williams College Museum of Art still not publish provenance?

That is a question that deserves to be asked by students of art history.

While waiting for the ownership history of artwork to become available for the WCMA, we look at the Credit Lines of artworks acquired after 1933 and created before 1945.

The source of the raw data is the WCMA Github.

Galerie Bing in Provenances of Artworks in UK Spoliation reports, Museums and Auctions

Are the provenances clear and solid for the Nazi years 1933-1945? Why or why not?

CIR 4 LINZ S. Lane Faison describes Hitler's Linz museum as "a monument to Safe Art"

From June 1945 until the spring of 1946, Faison, Plaut, and Rousseau detained and interrogated hundreds of Nazi officials and collaborators on the whereabouts of looted works of art. - Monuments Men Foundation

Buried for more than half a century

Altaussee Salt/Art Mine discovery after WW II
Lieutenants Kern & Sieber, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What must it have been like for Samson Lane Faison, Jr., James S. Plaut, Theodore Rousseau, Jr. and Jean Vlug to watch their reports on Nazi art looting and art dealer networks be buried and lost?

The ALIU reports contained names, dates, places, specific events, artworks - crucial information for tracking down looted art. 

All classified. Hidden away. Inaccessible. Unknown. Unexplored.

What lesson could these museum men possibly have learned from Washington's treatment of their historic work?

When, in 2001, the reports were to be published on microfiche, Dr. Greg Bradsher contacted S. Lane Faison, to tell him the news that their work would finally be public and to ask permission to give Faison's phone number to journalists who might want to know more. Bradsher described the conversation in a blog post for the National Archives:

On April 23, 2001, I phoned Professor Faison and told him the National Archives was issuing the next day a press release announcing the release of Microfilm Publication M-1782, “OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Reports, 1945-46.”  I told him the microfilmed records—including the detailed, consolidated, and final reports—were being made available on May 8, the 56th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s discovery of the salt mine at Alt Aussee, Austria, where the greatest concentration of Nazi plunder from Western Europe was concealed.  I asked him if he minded me making his phone number available if I received press inquiries about the records and the work of the ALIU.  He said at his age it was tough enough to get up to change the television channel, much less answer the phone regarding things he had done ages ago and which were well-documented in the records we were making available. So, yes, he did mind.

-  "An Office of Strategic Services Monuments Man: S. Lane Faison"

 This is the seventh in an ongoing series of posts on real-life Monuments Men. Today’s post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher. See related posts on Sir Charles Leonard Woolley, Walter J. Huchthausen, Seymour J. Pomrenze, Mason Hammond, Edith Standen, and Karol Estreicher. 

January 16, 2014 By US National Archives, Posted In Monuments Men

"The painting was bought at the auction in 1940 by a Dutch man, S.B.S. Slijper"

see: Heirs Sue for Return of a Kandinsky, Saying It Was Looted by Nazis, NYT,  https://www.lootedart.com/news.php?r=SBYXH2908751

Who was S.B.S. Slijper?

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?

read more at: http://archive.is/mNym6#selection-825.517-825.541

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