"Bitte großzügig bieten." Acquisitions made for the HAU Brunswick by Johannes Dürkop

The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum (HAUM) acquired various artworks from the art dealers Hans W. Lange (Berlin) and Th. Julius Hahn (Kunsthaus Heinrich Hahn, Frankfurt am Main) in the period 1933–1945. Both Lange and Hahn are assigned to the category “Private persons and companies participating in the Nazi looting of art" in the Lost Art Database. It was for this reason that the HAUM decided to have those masterpieces that had been acquired for the museum from Hahn and Lange in 1942 and 1943 examined in order to establish whether they had been confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution. The project was funded by the Office for Provenance Research at the Institut für Museumsforschung (Institute for Museum Research) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin—Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. It ran from July 2010 to October 2010.

The research activities associated with the project primarily focused on three paintings acquired from Lange in 1943: "Cella Berteneder" by Hans Thoma (1839–1924), "Hafenstädtchen" (Town with Harbor) by Andreas Achenbach (1815–1910) and "Hügellandschaft mit romanischem Dom" (Hilly Landscape with Romanesque Cathedral) by Johann Wilhelm Schirmer (1807–1863). They also focused on a historic Swiss Renaissance (?) marriage cupboard, purchased from Hahn in 1942, and five paintings likewise acquired from Hahn in 1942: "Wassermühle am Laubwald" (Water Mill in Deciduous Forest) by Anton Burger (1824–1905), "Felsgrotte mit Opferszene vor einer weiblichen Gottheit" (Grotto with a Sacrifice Before a Female Deity) by Rombout van Troyen (around 1605–1650), "Großes Bauerngehöft am Dorfrand" (Large Farmstead on the Edge of a Village) by Maximilian Joseph Wagenbauer (1774–1829), "Mänade auf einem Pantherfell" (Maenad on a Panther Fur) by Franz Ludwig Catel (1778–1856) and "Winterlandschaft mit Dorfstraße" (Winter Landscape with Village Street) which, according to the auction catalog, is said to be by Anthonie van Beerstraten (1637–around 1665), but probably comes from a Beerstraten imitator.

The acquisition of the Höchst porcelain figure "Der Winter" (Winter) from Hahn in 1942 could only be looked at briefly as part of the research. The following paintings bought by the HAUM in 1943 were also included in the investigations, even though they were not the main object of the in-depth research either: "Brustbild einer Dame" (Portrait of a Lady), which was attributed to Carl Joseph Begas (1794–1854), "Italienische Landschaft" (Italian Landscape) by August Wilhelm Julius Ahlborn (1796–1857) and "Ostseeküste" (Baltic Sea Coast) by Valentin Ruths (1825–1905), all three acquired from Scheuermann & Seifert (Berlin), and "Hectors Abschied von Andromache" (Hector’s Departure from Andromache) by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (1751–1829), purchased from Carl Nicolai (Berlin).

The direction of the HAUM’s acquisition policy had been set by the prime minister of Brunswick himself, Dietrich Klagges (1891–1971), since 1942. Besides Klagges, the persons involved in purchasing items for the HAUM during the Nazi era from 1942 were the Ministry of Education advisor and head of the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum, Johannes Dürkop (1905–1945); the director of the HAUM, Hans-Werner Schmidt (1904–1991); the art historian, art critic and leader of the Braunschweig Kunstverein and Kulturverwaltungsrat, Bruno Kroll; and the head of the Braunschweigischer Kulturverband and government official in the Brunswick State Ministry, Herbert Lehmann.

As one of the results of the provenance research on the HAUM acquisitions in 1933–1945, it can be concluded that the Swiss marriage cupboard belonged to Helene Peipers from Frankfurt am Main. There are no indications so far that this acquisition was obtained as a result of Nazi persecution. Equally, it is unclear whether the Begas painting "Brustbild einer Dame" was seized as a result of persecution. In 1943, Scheuermann & Seifert art dealers informed Dürkop upon request that the painting had belonged to an elderly lady who was not in a position to get her husband’s records on the picture at short notice. The truth of Scheuermann & Seifert’s remarks on the previous owner of the Begas painting cannot be verified, however.

By contrast, the provenance of the paintings by Troyen and Wagenbauer is clarified. Both belonged to the Jewish dermatologist Dr. Hans Herxheimer (Frankfurt am Main 1880–Theresienstadt 1944). Herxheimer had inherited numerous masterpieces from his mother, Fanny Herxheimer, who died in 1922. They included the paintings by Troyen and Wagenbauer. Herxheimer was not able to dispose of his assets freely because his mother, as testator, had handed over the management of her estate to executors and, in addition, his share of the inheritance had been taken by the Frankfurt am Main currency office of the Kassel Oberfinanzpräsidium (Finance Office) since 1939 under a seizure order. The executor of Fanny Herxheimer’s estate, Otto Heyer, had the two paintings auctioned by Kunsthaus Heinrich Hahn in 1942. It was there that the HAUM purchased the Troyen and the Wagenbauer. In an amicable settlement reached between the heirs of Hans Herxheimer and the HAUM, the Troyen was restituted to the heirs in 2013. The HAUM was able to keep the Wagenbauer in its collection after making a compensation payment to the heirs.

The painting "Cella Berteneder" by Hans Thoma comes from the collection of the Berlin merchant Max Böhm, who perished in Theresienstadt in 1944. At the end of the 1920s, the city of Berlin had initially considered acquiring the Böhm collection, but then had to abandon the purchase for economic reasons. The Böhm collection was eventually put up for sale in 1931 at Rudolph Lepke’s auction house in Berlin. But it is likely that the painting "Cella Berteneder" was not sold, as it was offered for sale again by Lepke in 1932. It possibly remained unsold once more and then became the property of the Berlin art dealer Carl Nicolai. He hoped he might have a better chance of selling it in Munich. In any case, on January 18, 1935, a "Nicolai, Berlin" offered a painting entitled "Cella Thoma" by Hans Thoma to Galerie Heinemann in Munich. The description of this painting exactly matches that of the picture "Cella Berteneder" at the HAUM. The Thoma painting "Cella Berteneder" was auctioned by Lange at the beginning of 1943, with Lange stating that the "client’s" place of residence was Munich. Here is where the circle would be closed. However, as far as is known, the picture was neither bought nor traded by Galerie Heinemann. The pressing question of whether the Thoma painting was then sold by Nicolai after Munich to another art dealer or a private individual cannot be answered on the basis of the available sources. Many questions therefore remain unanswered—not only on the Thoma painting, but in particular also on the works by Achenbach, Schirmer, Beerstraten, Burger and Catel. No details about the provenance of these works could be ascertained in the course of the project.

The results of the project appear in Hansjörg Pötzsch: "Bitte großzügig bieten’. Die Erwerbungen des Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museums Braunschweig im überregionalen Kunsthandel 1942/43 und die schwierigen Recherchen zu deren Provenienz." Published by Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum Brunswick, Brunswick 2012. There are also plans to present the Wagenbauer painting as an example of looted art in the HAUM’s new permanent exhibition "Introduction to the history of the museum".