Provenance research in the context of compiling an inventory catalog of German drawings from 1800–1850 in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Hamburger Kunsthalle

As part of a provenance research project at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, an investigation was carried out into the history and origins of German drawings from the first half of the 19th century which are held in the Kupferstichkabinett. These were acquired by the Hamburger Kunsthalle from 1933 onward. The research project ran from May 1, 2010 to April 30, 2013 and was financed using funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The holdings, which include works by famous Romanticists, play a prominent role in the history of the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s collection and are therefore of great relevance for the cultural and historical identity of the museum. The project had two objectives: firstly, to examine the legality of the acquisitions in accordance with the Washington Principles, and secondly, to present the history and origins of the drawings in a broader sense for the inventory catalog being developed for this part of the collection.
Because there is still a lack of empirical data regarding provenance research in the drawings field, this project also made an important contribution towards the further development of this specific branch of research. During the project, important gaps in the research and genre-specific problems came to light. Only further projects of a similar kind that deal with parallel cases and produce comparative figures will be able to contribute—partly retrospectively—towards clarifying the detailed issues that emerged here.

(c) Kunsthalle Hamburg