Nazi Looted Art

Another example of Stealing Culture we’ve seen in the news lately is the more recent identification of artworks currently in museums that were looted by the Nazis. In Paris, the Louvre hired Emmanuelle Polack, an expert in the art market during German Occupation, to investigate its collections. Within a month, the art historian identified 10 artworks that were previously in the collection of a Jewish lawyer, Armand Dorville, before their forced sale at auction. (You can read more on the story here: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/restitution-nazi-loot-louvre-france-1758900?fbclid=IwAR28wquxFdQDqDTOHXFmGpOXGTxCUIiE04bBU_bGERz1XDYuQmcCRgyrY64).  

There are many similar stories popping up lately. In the same link above is a story, just a week earlier, that Germany is returning 3 artworks found in 2012 inside Cornelius Gurlitt’s apartment in Munich, Germany. Gurlitt is the son of a prominent German art dealer (we touched on this in a previous blog -“What is the 1954 Hauge Convention”).  Interestingly enough, these works are from the same Jewish collector as the artworks recently identified in the Louvre. While 11 artworks from Dorville’s collection have been identified in French museums and 3 were found in Gurlitt’s apartment, we can only question the “whereabouts of the remaining 439 lots from the Dorville auction.”

You might ask why identifying and locating artworks looted by the Nazi regime is so difficult and time intensive. While there are many reasons, one major aspect is the specialized nature of provenance research. The literal meaning behind the word “provenance,” when related to a work of art or cultural object, is the history of ownership. From a legal standpoint, it is similar to the idea of “title” – such as the title to a vehicle. Except in the art and museum world, recording the transfer of ownership of an artwork or cultural object is not required by law. There is no central database that maintains artworld provenance. 

Should there be a worldwide database that details the provenance for artworks and cultural objects? Who would maintain it? A government?  A private company? What would the criteria be to prove ownership and who sets these standards? 

Let us know your thoughts. 

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IMAGE: Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Officer James Rorimer supervises US soldiers recovering looted paintings from Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany during World War II. Photo courtesy of the US National Archives and Records Administration.