Showing posts with label art market. Show all posts

Aug 30, 2024

Alsdorf in provenances of artworks in the Chicago Art Institute

James and Marilynn Alsdorf contributed many valuable artworks to the Art Institute of Chicago.

The table below shows provenance texts as published on AIC's website in August 2024.

Provenance gaps of over a thousand years are not uncommon.

Reportedly found in - a sampling of interesting provenances

What does "reportedly found in" mean when it appears in a provenance text for an artworks or antiquity?

Below are a few sample texts.

(Texts published by museums are indicated by color.)

Phoenix Ancient Art: selected provenances

detail of Marble female figure Cycladicca. 3200–2700 BC (on loan to the Met)

Phoenix Ancient Art has been in the news quite a bit lately, and art crime experts are advising museums to verify their collections.

Tracking Looted Art with Knowledge Graphs: A Wikidata Case Study

Art looting networks operate on many levels, many of them hidden, over long periods of time. The native graph function of Wikidata enhanced by federated queries can help track them.

Tracking Looted Art with Graphs

April 9, 2022, Laurel Zuckerman

Graphs and Networks in the Humanities 2022 Technologies, Models, Analyses, and Visualizations

6th International Conference, 3. – 4. February 2022, Online

The 6th international conference on Graphs and Networks in the Humanities took place from Thursday 3. February to Friday 4. February 2022 online, co-organized by scholars from the Huygens Institute (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences), the Academy of Sciences and Literature | Mainz, Vienna University, University of Leipzig, and the University Ca’ Foscari Venice

Paper: Tracking Looted Art with Graphs: A Case Study

Oct 18, 2022

Unnecessary mysteries

Signs that provenance research has gone off the rails include:

extremely long texts that leave the reader so confused that he/she concludes that there is no such thing as knowledge
massive use of words indicating uncertainty or unknowability
omission of crucial information that is available and which provides important context
mention of names which are known to be either persecuted Jewish collectors, Red Flag dealers of Nazi looted art, or associates with forgers WITHOUT mentioning that that's who they are
excessive speculation
false information

In this series of posts, we will examine a few remarkable examples of needlessly confusing provenance texts published by major museums.

May 11, 2022

Tracking looted art by examining the names in between. Example: MEISSNER

In this post, we look in art provenances that contain Meissner, a name that has appeared in connexion with Nazi-looted art.

Tracking Nazi-looted art dealers: Restitutions as data

What can we learn by analyzing the provenances of artworks which have been restituted to the heirs of Jewish art collectors persecuted by the Nazis?

Patterns. Repetition. Familiar faces.

Those art dealers who just keep "popping up".

In this post we see what we can learn from the provenance published by auctions houses which have been authorized to sell previously looted art AFTER it has been restituted to the families.

Nazi Art Looting Networks: Adolf Wuester

Zoom on a few of the individuals in Adolf Wuester's network (according to the Art Looting Investigation Unit in 1946)

Abels Brothers, Hermann	Cologne, Komoedienstrasse 26	Dealers	Specialists in 16th to 19th century painting and graphic arts
Bammann, Hans	Dusseldorf, Blumenstrasse 11	Dealer, drafted into the army in 1942 and transferred to the ERR in Paris in December 1943 at the request of Lohse and Wuester	Believed to have acted as agent for art purchases in France for museums of Dusseldorf, Cologne, Aachen and Bonn
Breker, Prof Arno	Starnberg (Buchhof uber Pocha), Bavaria	Celebrated Nazi sculptor, often in Paris during the war	Took part in arranging tour of French artists through Germany
Goepel, Dr Erhard	Leipzig, Stieghtstrasse 76	Official Linz agent and buyer in Holland under Posse and Voss	Bought extensively in Holland and also travelled frequently in Belgium and France
Knothe, Dr		Secretary of the German Embassy, Paris and reported to have worked with Wuester on art matters for von Ribbentrop and possibly Goebbels
Kuetgens, Dr Felix	Aachen, Heinrichsallee 18	Member of Kunstschutz, Paris	Mentioned as also in charge of Kunstschutz in Serbia and Greece
Loewenisch, Albert	Cologne Paris, 8 ave Victor Massel	Purchasing agent for the Gauleitung Dusseldorf-Koln-Aachen-Bonn, and one of the official representatives of German museums in France	Contact of Hermssen, Wuester, Weinmueller and Lange
May, Frau Wismer	Zurich, Seefeldstrasse 90	Colleague of Wuester in the art section of the German Embassy, Paris	Ardent Nazi and well connected in high Party circles
Mohnen, Wilhelm Jacob		German national	Captured in Rome, 5 February 1945, after taking refuge in the Vatican
Muthmann, Dr		Director of Museum of Krefeld	In contact with Wuester, Paul Cailleux, Dr Kurt Martin and Dr Hopp
Pfannstiel, Arthur	Paris	German painter and dealer, resident in Paris before the war	Member of staff of ERR, Bordeaux and of GIS
Rademacher, Dr Bernard	Bonn	Assistant at the Landesmuseum, Bonn	Agent for art purchases in France
von Waldthausen		In charge of interior decoration of the German Embassy, Paris, 1940	Assisted by Wuester, 1942
Wuester, Adolf	Bernau, Bavaria Bonn Schloesel	Painter and amateur dealer, long-time pre-war resident of Paris	Chief agent in France for acquisition of works of art for Ribbentrop
Blot	Paris	Dealer, dealt with Wuester
Cailleux, Paul	Paris, 136 rue du Fbg St Honore	Dealer in contact with Rochlitz, Wuester, Frau Dietrich, Haberstock	Knew Lohse, who claims to have freed his wife from a concentration camp
Cloots, F G	Paris, 14 rue de l’Abbaye	Small dealer specialising in 17th century Dutch painting	In contact with Wuester and Hofer
Gairac, Georges	Paris, 17 rue de Seine	French art dealer who sold to Wuester and Bornheim
Gerard, Raphael Louis Felix	Paris, 4 ave de Messine	Dealt in confiscated pictures; main source of supply to Wuester and other German buyers	Indicted by French Government (Seine Tribunal, Judge Frapier)
de Haucke, Cesar Monge	Paris, 14 rue du Cherche-Midi	Dealer active in Paris and New York before the war	Active in Paris during the occupation; in contact with Wuester, Haberstock and Hofer; documentary evidence in Unit files
Kalebjian, Irene	Paris, 52 bis ave d’Iena	Schenker documents indicate sales to German buyers	One of Wuester’s chief sources
Leegenhoek, M O	Paris, 1 rue de Rennes/230 blvd Raspail	Belgian national	Prominent restorer and subsequent dealer who sold extensively to Hofer, Lohse, Wendland, Wuester, Dietrich, Haberstock, Miedl, Goepel and the great majority of important German purchasers
Mandl, Victor	Paris, 9 rue du Boetie	German refugee dealer, formerly active in Berlin	Highly important figure in German art purchases in Paris
Montag, Charles	Sevres Meudon Val Fleury, 72 rue de Paris	Swiss; naturalised French	Artist and dealer
Renand, Georges	Paris, 30 quai de Bethune	Sold to Ribbentrop through Wuester	Schenker documents indicate sales to German buyers
Schmit, Jean	Paris, 22 rue de Charonne	Important antique dealer and decorating concern	Dealt with Bornheim, Angerer, Haberstock and other Germans brought to him by Wuester
Schoeller, Andre	Paris, 13 rue de Teheran	Well known expert in French 19th century painting	President of the Art Editors Syndicate and appraiser for the Hotel Drouot
Toulinot (Toulino)	Paris, 8 ave Victor Massel	Small dealer	Partner of Loewenisch
de Trevise, Duc	Paris	Pre-war sponsor and friend of Rochlitz and Wuester
Trotti, Count Rene Avogli	Paris, 1/88 rue de Grenelle	Well known art dealer of Italian birth; in touch with many German art agents during the war, particularly Wuester, an old friend	Also did business with Haberstock
Wuester Adolf	See Germany
Raeber, Dr Willi	Basle, St Albans Anlage 68	Prominent art dealer	Vice president of the Swiss syndicate of art dealers and its most active member
Wendland, Dr Hans	Versoix/Geneva	German national	Art dealer, resident alternately in France, Switzerland, Italy and Germany since World War I

For transcription of the Art Looting Investigation Unit Final Report and the Red Flag list of Names see lootedart.com here.

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

----------

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

-----

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.)

------

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

... Open Art Data ...

Pages