Art objects from Jewish collections at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt

Art objects from Jewish collections at the Historisches Museum FrankfurtIn December 2013, the last, 24-month-long phase of the project systematically examining acquisitions made between 1933 and 1945 was launched at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt. The project was funded by the Bureau for Provenance Research. Art historian Maike Brüggen was in charge of the provenance research activities from the beginning to the end of the project.

The museum’s receipt books showed that, during the 12 years of the Nazi regime, 403 paintings came into the museum’s possession as donations, gifts, purchases and transfers between city institutions. Of these 403 objects, 131 could no longer be found—they are considered to be items lost from the museum during wartime, meaning that the number still in existence today and to be examined is 272 works.

A group of 69 paintings could be classified as lawful acquisitions. The majority of these came into the museum’s holdings via Künstlerförderung Frankfurt (Francfort artist promotion society) and Künstlerhilfe (artist support association). As the role of the Künstlerförderung was to purchase works from living artists in their studios with the aim of supporting the promotion of local artists and the Frankfurt art scene, it is possible to rule out loss as a result of Nazi persecution. The other lawful acquisitions came from the possessions of non-Jewish families, e.g. the person portrayed or the painter, from inheritances or donations, or from other voluntary sales that had not been made as a result of persecution.

Most of the paintings acquired, 135 objects, are assigned to the yellow category since details about their acquisition or receipt are not known, but no evidence of persecution-related loss/compulsory sale etc. was apparent following the research.

For 37 objects, the research gave rise to the suspicion that changes in ownership possibly might not have been made voluntarily, either because the previous owners had Jewish ancestry or because the art dealers who traded the particular object were known to have traded objects from expropriated Jewish collections in other cases or had gone to occupied foreign countries to acquire objects or had worked as valuers of Jewish assets in the 1930s.

In nine cases, objects had to be assigned to the red category because there was (almost) no doubt that they had not changed hands voluntarily in the period 1933–1945.

For 22 paintings, no examination was possible because the acquisition book did not indicate who the works had been acquired from or who had donated, given or transferred them.

There are also paintings for which basic art history research would have been necessary first of all because they have not previously been attributed to an artist and/or the description of the subject is so general that a check of the relevant sources would not have produced any results, e.g. “Frankfurt painter, landscape”.

Some of these research findings can be viewed in the new permanent exhibition which opened in August 2012. It focuses on the art and handicraft collection that belonged to the Frankfurt banker and patron Julius Heyman. The collection of handicrafts and paintings from the medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods was initially presented in Heyman’s house at Palmstraße 16, Frankfurt, in rooms dedicated to different periods of art history. Heyman bequeathed the house and its artworks to the city of Frankfurt and stipulated that the house and its inventory be made accessible to the public and incorporated into the Historisches Museum (renamed the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum in 1934) as its own department. The collection was broken up against the donor’s wishes in 1940. Some of the art objects were shared among different museums in the city; others were put up for sale on the art market.

The aim of the ongoing project is to research the whereabouts of the scattered objects from the Heyman collection so that this important collection can be reassembled once again, at least in virtual form. A media station in the exhibition is updated regularly.

The successful conclusion of an important restitution case was reported in fall 2013. The painting “Sommer (Frau und Junge)” (Summer (Woman and Boy)) by Hans Thoma was successfully returned to the descendants of Frankfurt couple Hedwig and Albert Ullmann. The process is documented on the website.