Provenance research in the Landesgalerie painting and sculpture collections at the Landesmuseum Hannover in Lower Saxony

In June 2008, the state of Lower Saxony and the State Capital Hannover administrative authority established two part-time posts for provenance research which were initially limited until 2010. The aim was to examine the possible unlawful origins of objects that had entered the Hanoverian collections in 1933–45, regardless of their current ownership status. As part of the part-time provenance research post located at the Landesmuseum Hannover, which was responsible for the holdings owned by the province of Hanover/the state of Lower Saxony, the necessary foundations were laid first of all for a systematic examination of the painting and sculpture collections from the former art department, now the Landesgalerie. Groups of objects with conspicuous or dubious provenance were also to be identified after a review of the inventories.

The project based on these preliminary activities was intended to bring a provisional conclusion to the systematic examination and documentation of the acquisitions in the Landesgalerie’s painting and sculpture collections for the acquisition period 1933–45. It would also extend the search for cultural goods confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution to the acquisitions, transfers and inventories that had entered the collection after 1945. The project focused on around 700 paintings and sculptures owned by the state of Lower Saxony which had come into the Landesmuseum Hannover’s art department (since 1950 the Landesgalerie) after 1933 by way of purchase, donation or transfer and which had an unclarified or incomplete provenance, or had changed owners between 1933 and 1945. The primary aim was to document the provenance of these works as seamlessly as possible as a prerequisite for the identification and disclosure of unlawful ownership circumstances. Masterpieces suspected of being objects confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution, or which are identified as such, should be restituted to their rightful owners or their heirs in accordance with the Washington Conference Principles on Holocaust-Era Assets of December 3, 1998 and the Declaration of the German Federal Government, German states and leading municipal associations of December 9, 1999. Like objects with unclarified origins, they must be registered with the Coordination Office for Lost Cultural Assets in Magdeburg and published on www.lostart.de and on the Landesmuseum website.

(c) Niedersächsischen Landesmuseums Hannover