Pinakos Inc joint owner network in the Knoedler files

Pinakos, owned by Rudolph Heinemann, is a name that pops up in Nazi-looted art and false provenances.

However, the Pinakos name has a tendency to be scrubbed from provenance records, replaced either by its owner, Heinemann, or, occasionally, its frequent partner, Knoedler.

This is a pity because while Heinemann and Knoedler operated over long periods of time, including long before WWII, Pinakos is a name that appears only at very specific times. (So specific that it can be used to date undated ledger entrees.)

Pinakos Inc is rarely found alone in the Knoedler ledgers. Usually it appears as a "joint owner". An interesting pattern is Pinakos as first a "joint owner" and then, without the other partner, a seller in a separate ledger entree.

Pinakos Inc often appears in leger entrees "carried forward". Some transactions involve exchanges or returns with several different Knoedler numbers.

This post examines "joint owners" which appear in the Knoedler ledgers together with Pinakos. 

Nazi-looted art provenance research: names to verify in provenance texts of art museums

Names of Concern to verify in Art Provenances for European artworks created before 1945 and acquired after 1932, contains persons and organisations

(Wikidata Queries run January 25, 2025)

Merges persons of concern and organisations of concern in Nazi looted art and includes, where available Status,  GND, VIAF, Proveana and LCCN identifiers as well as alternate spellings for entity matching in provenance texts.

Download data in CSV format

Url of Public Google Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vTuf7QIW4T15_5YJURSlvhZalwsdVrCNHiv5Iq4PaY-AepMw-rovx4aw9cleEI8S3NPInv4uMk9S5XD/pub?gid=103406480&single=true&output=csv

Description: 

The dataset contains 745 entries and 10 columns, with the following details:

1. Columns Overview:

   • item: Contains Wikidata URIs for the entities.
   • itemLabel: Labels or names of the entities.
   • itemDescription: Descriptions of the entities.
   • status: Provides information on the entity's status (e.g., related to Holocaust restitution cases or flagged as red flags).
   • altNames: Alternative names for the entities; this column has some missing values (449 non-null out of 745).
   • GND: German National Library identifiers; partially populated (423 non-null).
   • Proveana: Proveana-related identifiers; partially populated (132 non-null).
   • VIAF: Virtual International Authority File identifiers; partially populated (488 non-null).
   • LCCN: Library of Congress Control Numbers; partially populated (302 non-null).
   • RunDate: The date when the data was run/compiled.

Museum Collections and Names of Concern in Provenance

The following names are linked to Holocaust art and restitution cases stemming from the persecution of Jews in the Nazi era. Their presence in a provenance is a Flag that requires serious verification. (For art galleries, see "More Names of Concern".

Analysing provenance gaps with CHATGPT4O

Can LLM Chatbots automate the analysis of provenance texts in order to detect potentially problematic provenances for the Nazi-era?

In this post we ask ChatGPT4O to "help us to look for gaps in the provenance (Provenance)?"

Contextual Information for Nazi-era Provenance Research - Wikidata Sparql Query

Holocaust victim, art looting Red Flag name, Nazi party member, or persecuted person?

Art historians, provenance researchers, museum curators, scholars of the Holocaust and the art market,

If you would like to know whether a person in a provenance is a Holocaust victim, a looting Red Flag name, a Nazi party member, or a persecuted person, here is a Sparql query in Wikidata that can help:

https://w.wiki/7gg3

                                                       (collectors, dealers)

Clicking on the link above runs a Wikidata Sparql query.

The link below is more complete but runs slower...

https://w.wiki/8rbj
(collectors, dealers, curators, art historians)

DATASET: Toledo Museum of Art Provenance Archive

This art provenance dataset contains publicly available information originally published online by a cultural heritage institution which has been formatted as a CSV file for easy download and analysis with digital tools.  It is intended to facilitate research into Holocaust-era provenance for scholars, art historians and families. 

Toledo Museum of Art Provenance Research

DATASET DOWNLOAD CSV FILE

(based on

http://www.toledomuseum.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Provenance-Research-lowres.pdf
archived at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121224083005if_/http://www.toledomuseum.org:80/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Provenance-Research-lowres.pdf )

ALIU Red Flag List of Names in Italian (with DeepL)

This post publishes in Italian the Art Looting Investigation Red Flag List of Names which was originally written in English in 1945-6.

(Translated from English into Italian by Deepl)

OSS ALIU Art saccheggio lista di nomi con bandiera rossa tradotta in italiano

(update in progress)

Titolo

OSS (USS Office of Strategic Services) Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945-1946 e ALIU Red Flag Names List and Index  

https://www.lootedart.com/MVI3RM469661

Descrizione

Nel 1944 il governo degli Stati Uniti creò un'unità speciale di intelligence che si occupava di arte saccheggiata, formata e amministrata dall'OSS.  Nel corso del 1945 e 1946, questa unità, chiamata Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU), produsse 16 rapporti stampati. 

Un indice dei nomi che elenca tutti gli individui, i commercianti e le agenzie che appaiono in uno di questi rapporti è disponibile qui. L'indice dei nomi può anche essere cercato su questo sito cliccando sul pulsante "Cerca" e digitando un nome nella casella di ricerca delle informazioni.   

I NOMI DELLE BANDIERE ROSSE E I DETTAGLI DELLE LORO ATTIVITÀ IN TEMPO DI GUERRA SONO ANCHE RIPORTATI IN FONDO A QUESTO DOCUMENTO, ORGANIZZATI IN ORDINE ALFABETICO PER PAESE DI ATTIVITÀ.   

I rapporti ALIU sono di tre tipi:

UK National Gallery Whereabouts of paintings 1933-1945

The old url for the UK National Gallery  Whereabouts of  paintings 1933-1945 no longer works  

(https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/history/collection-history/whereabouts-of-paintings-1933-45)

Fortunately, there is a new url that works. 

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/history/collection-history/whereabouts-of-paintings-1933-1945


And, as backup, there is the Internet Archive, where people and bots saved the url 23 times.

Art Provenance Research: Guilio, Luigi, Arturo and Ginori Grassi?

Giulio and Luigi Grassi: Holocaust Era Assets WWII OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit Final Report Page 164

source: https://www.fold3.com/image/232006580

The Art Looting Investigation Unit Final Report contains several mentions of the name "Grassi".

• Angerer, Josef (Sepp). Berchtesgaden. After Hofer, Goering’s most important buyer. Ardent Nazi, known to have had Gestapo connections. Member of firm of Quantmeyer & Eicke. Active throughout Europe, notably France and Italy. Contact of Reber, Ventura, Contini-Bonacossi, Ginori and Arturo Grassi. Was under temporary house arrest at Berchtesgaden, house of Fritz Goernnert, autumn 1945

• Grassi, Dr. Zurich. Official of the Schweizer Kantonal Bank. Special contact of Wendland.

• Grassi, Giulio and Luigi. Florence, Via Cavour 106. Established Florentine art dealers. Trafficked heavily with German officials and dealers, particularly Hofer, Angerer and Posse. Sold considerable quantity of furniture to Contini.

• Sestieri, Dr Ettoro. Rome, Lungetevere Oberdan. Dealer. Historian. Director of Barberini Gallery. Worked with Grassi and Morandotti who introduced him to Hofer.

• Wallerstein, Dr Victor. Florence, viale Manfredo Fanti 109. German Jewish refugee dealer, whose brother is an orchestra leader in New York. Middleman for Hofer in Florence. Contact of Contini-Bonacossi, Ventura and Grassi.

However the Red Flag Names Index only mentions a Dr, and the brothers, Giulio and Luigi Grassi. There is no mention of Ginori and Arturo Grassi.

Grassi, Dr. 131 CIR 2; DIR 9; Miedl Report III.

Grassi, Giulio 159 CIR 2; DIR 9

Grassi, Luigi 159 CIR 2; DIR 9
The brothers Guilio and Luigi are also mentioned in the Goering Report (ALIU CIR 2)

Who, one wonders, are Ginori and Arturo Grassi?
Are they also brothers? What might be their relation to Giulio and Luigi?

---

The site Grassistudio provides clarification:


By 1900, Prof. Luigi Grassi was already heading his own well-established gallery in Florence, Italy, having earlier collaborated with his uncle Costantini, a dealer active there since the 1860s.  As a young man, however, Luigi had been trained at the Rome Academy and actually began his career as a paintings restorer at the Uffizi....


 “Luigi Grassi and Sons” became a requisite stop for any connoisseur traveling to Florence during the 1920s and 30s:...


After Luigi’s death in 1937, the gallery remained active until the early 1950s, managed by Prof. Grassi’s   two sons, Giulio and Arturo....



Several museums, particularly Detroit, effected important acquisitions through Arturo Grassi.

Arturo’s two sons, Luigi and Marco, both returned to Europe after their education in America. Luigi has remained in Florence as a private paintings dealer. Marco trained as a fine arts conservator, first, like his grandfather, at the Uffizi, and subsequently in Rome and Zurich. After initiating a private practice in Florence in the early 1960s, Marco served as visiting and consulting conservator to a number of important private collectors, among them H.H. Thyssen-Bornemisza in Lugano, and Norton Simon, in Pasadena. Since 1974, he has been active mostly in New York.


According to the above, the relations are:


Prof Luigi Grassi (d.1937) ==> sons Giulio and Arturo ==> sons Luigi and Marco.


(There doesn't seem to be any mention of a Ginori).


How to reconcile the ALIU Reports and this family tree?


links to SOURCES:
http://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf/aliu_index_0712.pdf
http://www.lootedart.com/MVI3RM469661
http://www.grassistudio.com/Grassi-Studio-News-and-Events-DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=20&lg=en


Other References: