Art Museums in Germany, map from Wikidata

This map of art museums in Germany is generated by a Wikidata Query.
You can click on any dot to see the information about the museum.

Art Looting Investigation Unit: mentions of the Bauer Collection in the Final Report

What do the Art Looting Investigation Reports say about the looting of the Bauer Collection? How easy - or difficult - is it to access this information today, in 2017?

Can one search the archives via internet and retrieve the information?

Here is the result of a simple test: looking for information on the seizure of the Bauer collection in one of the ALIU Reports, the "Final Report". This report contains, notably, a list of names of suspected Nazi era operators.

WWII Era Provenance Research Projects PDF files

The following American museums have published WWII Era provenance information for selected artworks online in PDF files.


Philadelphia Museum of Art List of Collection Works That Changed Ownership In Continental Europe, 1933-1945 - no images (Archived version here)


Tacoma Art Museum (PDF published on the internet  in 2015: Archived version here)


Toledo Museum (PDF dated 2006: Archived version here)

Detroit Institute of Arts Provenance Listings (Archived Version here

https://web.archive.org/web/20100329015920/https://www.dia.org/art/provenance-listings.aspx)


The Guggenheim Museum collection : paintings, 1880-1945
by Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Rudenstine, Angelica Zander; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation  Publication date 1976 (Isbn 0892070021,Lccn 75037356,Oclc-id 185583502,Openlibrary_edition OL11297020M, Openlibrary_work OL8482129W

Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution (PDF dated 9/10/2013 published on internet: Archived version here) This link appears to have been taken down since its publication.

To search in files, clink on link and hit Ctrl-F to call up the search box.

Archives and Wikipedia: can structured links help make resources easier to find?

Germany provides much interesting thinking on linking information. Below, Odendahl, posting on Open Edition, shares a suggestion for referencing archives on Wikipedia in an article entitled "Archivquellen einheitlich in der Wikipedia verlinken".  (click here for Google Translate).

We'd like, he says, to see our archives used.

Why not have an easy and yet rigorously formatted way to share archives?

The format that he suggests using in Wikipedia is:

{{Archivquelle
|sammlung=
|bestand=
|dossier=
|dokument=
|signatur=
|titel=
|datum=
|institution=
|link=
}}

It seems like this (or something like this) could be a very useful addition. 

Take, for example the International Research Portal for Records Related to Nazi-Era Cultural Property that is hosted by the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI).  

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Wikipedia (and this Wikidata and Dbpedia) for each archive referenced, along with direct links to the database on Wikipedia? It might make it easier for people who don't know about EHRI or the Portal to find the information, and there doesn't seem to be any downside.

(As of this writing the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure had a Wikidata ID but not yet a Wikipedia page.)

What do you think?

Looted art databases: Adolf Weinmüller

Sale records from Nazi-era auction house Adolf Weinmüller, which trafficked in art looted from Jewish owners, are available online at Germany’s Lost Art Database.

A member of the Nazi Party since 1931, Weinmüller absorbed two Jewish-run auction houses: Munich’s Hugo Helbing, and Vienna’s Samuel Kende. Weinmüller's clients included Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s private secretary.

In 1958, Weinmüller sold his business to Rudolf Neumeister. In 2013 a Neumeister employee discovered the catalogues, which it lent to the Zentral Institut für Kunstgeschichte (the central institute for art history) for publication on the Lost Art website.

Sarah Cascone, writing for Artnews on May 29, 2014, pointed out that "Given the large number of records, it seems plausible that the Weinmüller catalogues could lead investigators and Sunday provenance sleuths to the next Gurlitt looted art trove."

"Some 34,500 objects were sold by Weinmüller during this period in 33 Munich auctions and 18 Vienna sales."

These can now be consulted at http://www.lostart.de/Webs/EN/LostArt/Index.html%3bjsessionid=F952AF9A3892DCD735351DEF55CF8946.m0

Article from Artnews by Sarah Cascone, "Now You Can Browse Nazi Auction Catalogues for Looted Art Sales" published May 29, 2014