Art Provenance Research Red Flags: Alexander Ball

Art Looting Investigation Unit Detailed Interrogation Report of Karl Haberstock (DIR 13) on refugee art dealer Alexander Ball "The implications of such a revelation are exceedingly grave, and BALL should be brought to account." However Alexander Ball and his brother Richard had already reached America.
source: War Department Strategic Services Report DIR 13
https://dfs.ny.gov/consumer/holocaust/history_art_looting_restitution/The%20Allies/OSS%20and%20the%20ALIU/ALIU%20Reports/karl_haberstock.pdf

Alexander Ball, also known as Alex Ball, A. Ball, A & R Ball, and Ball Galleries, was a Berlin art dealer who became a refugee and, unfortunately, worked closely with notorious Nazi art looter Karl Haberstock, helping him to locate Jewish collections for spoliation.

A Ball's activities are documented by the Art Looting Investigation Unit in several reports, including the Final Report Red Flag List of Names and the Detailed Interrogation Report (DIR) Number 13 of Karl Haberstock.

It is noteworthy how poorly Alexander Ball is documented and referenced today in art history dictionaries, encyclopedias, and art reference databases.

Art that passed through his hands landed in major museums. Any provenance or ownership history that contains his name in any of its forms deserves a closer look, with special scrutiny for items listed on the Nazi Era Internet Portal and items with gaps or other red flags in their provenance.

Below are a few mentions of Alexander Ball in historical sources as well as a few references for him.

Art Looting Investigation Unit Red Flag List of Names

Ball, Alexander. Paris, 9 rue Royale Aix en Provence New York (?). German Jewish refugee dealer. Intermediary for Haberstock in the sale of pictures from the unoccupied zone. Also believed to have informed on the whereabouts of prominent Jews, notably Guy de Rothschild. Believed to be in the United States.

de Beauperthuys, Simone le. Paris, 6 ave de la Grande Armee. Secretary of Alexander Ball and intermediary for Ball with Haberstock, to whom she offered pictures of doubtful origin. Also represented Fischer, for whom she signed a receipt to Bornheim in Paris, July 4 1941.

Statistics on Women Art Dealers in Wikidata, Viaf, LCCN, DNB and ULAN

Art Market Authority Files: Where are the Women?

How are Women Art Dealers represented in authority files?

To try to answer this question, we looked at a Wikidata Query for Women Art Dealers:

RESULTS:

• As of May 16, 2018, 124 female art dealers were referenced in Wikidata with information about their gender (female) and their occupation (art dealer)
• Of these 124, WIKIDATA had the VIAF ID for 59, the Library of Congress IDs for 40, the GND IDs for 36 and the spouses for 20. Only 13, or about 10%, had ULAN IDs in Wikidata.

You can consult the listing in a shared Google Doc here.

Link to the Women Art Dealers Wikidata Query Results here.

It would be interesting to compare Lists of Women Art Dealers resulting from Queries in VIAF, LCCN, GND and ULAN to see if the problem stems from a lack of Authority information in WIKIDATA (the ID exists but has not been added to the Wikidata entity) or simply a lack of information about Women Art Dealers in crucial authorities.

Women Art Dealers with Identifiers and Spouses

List of Women Art Dealers in Wikidata May 16, 2018

UPLOAD RESULTS
JSON file of Women Art Dealers
CSV file of Women Art Dealers from Wikidata Query May 16, 2018
see stats here

Art Dealer Name	WIKIDATA item	VIAF_ID	Library_of_Congress_authority_ID	GND_ID	ULAN_ID	spouse	spouseLabel
Helga de Alvear	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q5704398	203283547	no2003112064
Jeanne Greenberg-Rohatyn	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6172093	165824978
Lucy Wertheim	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6698567
Martha Hopkins Struever	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6774430	73552138	no2003106507
Maureen Paley	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6792748	26330572	n96076100	142187895	500065649
Bertha Urdang	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6966052
Shelley M. Shier	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7493794
Terry Dintenfass	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7704300	63943854	nr2002021200			http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q6140012	James Morgan Read
Vanessa Branson	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7914616
Virginia Dwan	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7934253	70033908
Wendy Olsoff	http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q7982741

Fritz Mont, Frederick Mondschein and Galerie Sanct Lucas

What does it mean to find the names Fritz Mont, Fritz Mondschein, Frederick Mondschein or Frederick Mont in the provenance of an artwork?

The Getty has a record for MONT Inc

biography

Born in Vienna in 1894, Frederick Mont, also known as A. F.  Mondschein or Frederick Mondschein or Adolf Fritz Mondschein, emigrated to the United States in the 1930s. Mont aka Mondschein owned the Galerie Sanct Lucas and counted among his clients many US museums. He had close relationships with American dealer Victor Spark (1898-1991) and the Newhouse Galleries. Mont played an important role in the transatlantic art trade. The names Mont, Mondschein, and Sanct Lucas appear in several artworks listed on NEPIP, the Nazi Era Provenance Research Portal.

(source: Archives Directory for the History of Collecting in America)
*****
see also:
Galerie Sanct Lucas
Newhouse Galleries
Spark, Victor David, 1898-1991 

Red Flags in #Arthistory: Kleinberger

A search on Kleinberger in the German Historical Museum Linz Database returns five paintings

The name "Kleinberger" appears fourteen times in the French MNR database, five times in the German Historical Museum Linz Database and three times in the Art Looting Investigation Red Flag List of Names, along with "Loebl" (14 times) and "Garin" (6 times)