Oppenheimer China collection

Background and provenance of Chinese art objects acquired at so-called “Jewish auctions” in Berlin in 1935—a provenance research project

Funded by the Bureau for Provenance Research (AfP), Berlin, and subsequently by the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus, Wissenschaft und Kunst, from March 2014 to May 2016. Conducted by Dr. Ilse von zur Mühlen

On behalf of the Museum Fünf Kontinente, Dr. Ilse von zur Mühlen researched the previous provenance and background of three ancient Chinese objects which the Museum Fünf Kontinente had acquired in 1935 at an auction held by Paul Graupe in Berlin and also after 1945 by way of a donation or exchange. This research was prompted by a restitution claim for the three objects. Project assistance was provided by Dr. Bruno J. Richtsfeld, head of the Inner, North and East Asia department at the Museum Fünf Kontinente, who located a further 32 objects in the holdings prior to the project. These belonged to the same auction inventory. The aim was to examine whether the pieces could be assessed as having been confiscated by the Nazis, as defined in the Washington Principles of 1998.

The total of 40 inventory items in question were acquired in Berlin in 1935 at two sales at the Paul Graupe auction house. They were goods from the stock of the firm Dr. Otto Burchard & Co. GmbH, a gallery in liquidation. The gallery belonged to Margraf & Co. GmbH, an international group of galleries whose owner had bequeathed the group’s business shares to his longstanding employees Jacob and Rosa Oppenheimer in 1929. The Oppenheimers were persecuted from the early days of the Nazi regime. Both were of Jewish origin and the couple fled into exile in France in April 1933. Rosa Oppenheimer was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943; Jacob Oppenheimer died in 1941 following internment by the French.

The auction, however, came about as a result of the gallery’s excessive indebtedness. This had existed since 1929 and had been incurred through risky commercial activities and through loans taken out from the Berlin bank Jacquier & Securius. The auction was not organized as a consequence of an official measure taken by the Nazi authorities, but by the bank (as holder of the consigned property as collateral) and on the basis of an auction contract signed by mutual agreement between the (Jewish) auctioneer Paul Graupe, the (Jewish) bank Jacquier & Securius and the manager of the Margraf firm, Ivan Bloch, who was also Jewish and a son-in-law of the Oppenheimers. The research showed that fair prices were achieved at the auctions. Evidence indicates that the proceeds were used to repay all the outstanding debt to the bank. The remainder was clearly paid out; a note in the bank’s audit report of 1938 says: “Most of the proceeds went to Margraf”. The inheritance tax liability that also arose in 1929 was reduced to around half in 1938; the rest of the tax debts were paid by the main heiress, while Jacob and Rosa Oppenheimer’s share was ignored.

These research findings led to the conclusion that the objects are deemed not to have been confiscated and auctioned as a result of Nazi persecution. This result is supported by the decision of the Spoliation Advisory Panel (SAP), London, of September 16, 2015, in which the auction of the masterpieces belonging to Margraf and companies was judged to be neither a forced sale by the Nazis nor an auction sale at an undervalue. According to the SAP, the claimant also could not assert a “moral claim”, meaning that neither a return nor a voluntary payment was justified.

(c) Museum Fünf Kontinente