What other artworks passed through Silberman Galleries?

The Times' David Sanderson just published "Painting from Hitler’s love nest hangs in the National Gallery" reminding us that Silberman Galleries provided false information to the UK National Gallery of Art about the 16th-century painting Cupid Complaining to Venus.  

Its provenance has long been known to have a big Nazi era gap, and was even published in the National Gallery's Whereabouts of paintings 1933-1945 and in the Collection Trust's Spoliation Reports. 

The Times article includes a photo of the Cranach "hanging in the living room of Hitler’s private Munich apartment, where he often entertained his mistress, Eva Braun".

All this poses two obvious questions. 

1) How is the UK National Gallery of Art advancing in its research into the many many artworks with Nazi-era gaps?

and

2) What other artworks passed through E. & A. Silberman Galleries?

(see also: "BOSTON MFA SETTLES VAN DER NEER CASE" http://web.archive.org/web/20151016233930/http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artnetnews/boston-mfa-settles-van-der-neer-case.asp 

and Double Comma Names )

Below are a few examples of :

Selected Christie's catalogue provenance references mentioning E. & A. Silberman Galleries

How to create a false provenance for a forgery, IKEA-style satirical instruction manual from ChatGPT

Here's a satirical IKEA-style instruction guide for assembling a false provenance for a forged artwork. It’s entirely fictional and intended to educate through humor—exposing how shady art dealings might look if they came with assembly instructions. (author: ChatGPT4o)

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🖼️ FAKEVÄRDE

False Provenance Kit – Discreetly elevate your garage painting to gallery prestige!

📦 Contents:

• 1x Faded Auction Catalogue (pre-yellowed)

• 3x Invented Collectors (with vaguely European surnames)

• 1x Retired Art Historian (missing credentials)

• 2x “Private Collection, Switzerland” Labels

• 1x Forged Gallery Sticker

• 1x Typewriter (w/ misaligned keys for “authenticity”)

• 1x Bottle of Coffee (for artificial aging)

Erroneous provenance graph with links to source documents

Lady with a Fan, Lady with a False Provenance

 

Why did the National Gallery of Victoria originally list a "Dr. Grunden of Hamburg" in the provenance of this 17th century painting by Gerard ter Borch, Lady with a Fan? 

When Max Emden's grandson, Juan Carlos Emden, found, in Australia, the painting that had belonged to his family before Hitler came to power, he knew the provenance was wrong.

Forgery and false provenances

False provenances are needed to insert art forgeries into the historical record.

Where there is forgery there is false provenance.

Dealers who sell forgeries are great sources of false provenances. A special kind of writing is involved in the creation of false provenances. A talent for making things that are not true seem at least plausible. 

Question: Do dealers of forgeries also sell looted art?

Some, like Knoedler, are known to have sold both at one time or another. Knoedler's prestige and power enables it to insert lies into the historical record without being challenged for a very long time. 

What about the others? How to find out?

Looted antiquities and false provenances

Looted Art Newsflash 26 May 2022 Former Louvre Director Jean-Luc Martinez Has Been Charged With Money Laundering Over Ties to Alleged Antiquities Trafficking Ring Jo Lawson-Tancred Artnet News

Looted Art Newsflash 25 May 2022 Jean-Luc Martinez, ancien patron du Louvre, mis en examen dans une affaire de trafic d’antiquités Il est soupçonné de blanchiment et complicité d’escroquerie en bande organisée. En cause, une stèle gravée au nom de Toutânkhamon exposée au Louvre Abu Dhabi, qui pourrait avoir été pillée. Par Roxana Azimi Le Monde