Provenance research at Stadtmuseum Oldenburg: art acquisitions from 1933 to 1945 critically assessed

The collection of Stadtmuseum Oldenburg comprises a total of some 120,000 items. Most of these originated from the Theodor Francksen Foundation, which came into municipal ownership in 1914. Further endowments, purchases and donations followed, continuously increasing the museum’s holdings as the years went by. Following the completed investigation of the Bernhard Winter Foundation, provenance research at Stadtmuseum Oldenburg was extended to include other relevant collection holdings.

Items under investigation

From November 2016 to August 2020, provenance research was conducted to scrutinise all works of art that entered the collections of the Stadtmuseum between 1933 and 1945 – a total of 1,729 items at the final count. Three sub-collections were subjected to a systematic investigation of their provenance:

1. The art collection of Oldenburg curator, painter and collector Richard tom Dieck (1862-1943), comprising 922 items, consists of paintings, watercolours, drawings and mainly prints dating from the 16th to 20th centuries. Together with tom Dieck’s written legacy and his own artistic oeuvre, these items came into the possession of Stadtmuseum Oldenburg as a bequest. Richard tom Dieck held several key positions in Oldenburg’s cultural life for many years: as curator of the Grand Ducal Collections, as an active board member of the Oldenburg art association and as a volunteer director at the municipal museum of local history, which was later to become Stadtmuseum Oldenburg.

2. The art collection of the Paul Stalling Foundation is also a large collection comprising some 627 inventory numbers. Acquired at the beginning of 1945, it consists of watercolours and drawings as well as mainly prints dating from the 16th to 20th centuries which were collected by Oldenburg publisher Paul Stalling (1861-1944). Together with his brother Heinrich Stalling, he developed the tradition-steeped Gerhard Stalling-Verlag into a leading German publishing house in the 1930s. Paul Stalling was also actively involved as a member of the board of the Oldenburg regional association until his death, holding the office of treasurer until October 1942.

Extensive provenance research has been carried out but has not yielded any concrete evidence of unlawful acquisitions during the Nazi era in either collection. As things currently stand, questions remain unresolved regarding the sources of acquisition and the previous owners of the respective collection items.

3. A third, smaller collection consists of 180 acquisitions from various other sources – both works of art and craft items – which were accessioned into the museum’s collections between 1933 and 1945 through purchases from dealers and private individuals, donations, transfers on the part of authorities or by unknown means. Several of these transactions gave rise to initial suspicion and were therefore investigated in greater depth.

Findings

Of the items investigated that were accessioned between 1933 and 1945, 62 were classified as "at least questionable". Some of them have not yet been clearly identified in the museum’s collection. A total of 25 objects from the collections of Stadtmuseum Oldenburg have been entered in the German Lost Art Foundation’s database Lost Art.

Research was also done during the course of the project into two additional acutely suspected cases which did not form part of the research inventory and which did not find their way into the museum’s collections until after 1945. The items in question here are the foundation stone of Oldenburg’s pre-war synagogue, which was destroyed by the National Socialists, and objects formerly owned by the Jewish Oldenburg couple Henny and Siegfried Insel. The collection items in question were each categorised as "objectionable". Provenance research was able to achieve crucial outcomes in both cases.

The foundation stone of the old Oldenburg synagogue was ceremoniously laid in 1854, and the building was destroyed by the National Socialists on the night of the pogroms in 1938. The foundation stone was not found until 1959 during construction work. It subsequently ended up in the collections of Stadtmuseum Oldenburg, where it was eventually forgotten. Provenance research was able to determine its origins. In June 2019, the synagogue foundation stone was restituted to the Jewish community of Oldenburg by the City of Oldenburg. Following the restitution, the Jewish community generously donated the symbolic stone to the Stadtmuseum as a long-term loan. On show in the museum’s permanent exhibition, it is an important physical testament to the history of Jewish life in Oldenburg and of past injustice. Further information on the restitution of the Synagogen-Grundsteins: https://stadtmuseum-oldenburg.de/provenienzforschung/juedische-gemeinde-hat-grundstein-der-alten-synagoge-zurueckerhalten/

The second case involves a pewter pot and wedding jewellery that were donated to the Stadtmuseum Oldenburg collections in 1997. The items in the collection originally belonged to the Jewish family Henny and Siegfried Insel, who lived in Oldenburg. The couple fled persecution to the Netherlands in 1939. Neither the couple nor their children survived the Holocaust. The City of Oldenburg has decided that it is prepared to restitute these objects. The search for heirs is planned for 2021 at Stadtmuseum Oldenburg.

Exhibition

Two different exhibition stations on provenance research are integrated in the presentation of the Stadtmuseum’s collection, providing visitors with vivid insights into key project outcomes through objects, photographs and explanatory texts. Provenance research at the museum was also part of the special exhibition "Entdeckt, bewundert, aufgehoben" [Discovered, admired, saved] in 2020, which was dedicated to various aspects of collecting.

© Stadtmuseum Oldenburg