Research on the painting “Kirche von Niedergrunstedt” (1919) by Lyonel Feininger

In a TV report of the magazine show KLARTEXT on February 27, 2008, the television channel RBB addressed the issue of whether the painting “Kirche von Niedergrunstedt” (Niedergrunstedt Church) by Lyonel Feininger (WVZ-Hess 199) was probably Jewish property that had been sold under the threat of Nazi persecution. The painting had been acquired in 1949 for the state of Berlin from the Berlin-based Galerie Franz and kept in the Neue Nationalgalerie for decades. It was said that the husband of the former owner, Maria Daus—a daughter of the Berlin collector and store owner Hermann Freudenberg—had been very badly treated by the National Socialists in April 1933 and, as a result, the family had prepared to emigrate to Palestine. On November 30, 1933, Ms. Daus told the Berlin state tax office: “With the exception of the RM 14,000 required by the British government for the purpose of starting a new life in Palestine, we have no assets. The money is in my account at the Dresdner Bank, Berlin. This sum has been obtained through the sale of furniture, furnishings and valuable oil paintings.” The editors of the report assumed that one of these oil paintings was “Kirche von Niedergrunstedt”. The investigation of this assumption by a provenance researcher from the Berlinische Galerie was the first short-term project financed by the Bureau for Provenance Research.

The subsequent research focused on a label from Galerie Ferdinand Möller and the faintly legible name “Freudenberg” on the painting’s stretcher. It could be proven that the Nationalgalerie in Berlin had accepted the painting in 1928 as a loan from Ms. Hermann Mayer-Freudenberg for the exhibition “New German art from private owners in Berlin” and displayed it again in 1931 in the “Lyonel Feininger” exhibition. The catalog for this exhibition names Maria Daus as the lender. According to an authorization issued by her in the files of the Zentralarchiv of the Staatliche Museen, the painting left the care of the Nationalgalerie and was handed over to an unnamed messenger on February 6, 1932. It is not known whether the painting was returned to Maria Daus by this messenger or became the property of someone else at this point. February 6, 1932 is therefore considered the last known date on which the painting could be associated with Maria Daus.

As part of the scientific in-depth indexing of the Ferdinand Möller archive in the artist archives of the Berlinische Galerie, a letter dated January 2, 1933, from Ferdinand Möller to the Jewish collector Max Fischer in Berlin was examined. It said that Ferdinand Möller had received back the painting (here erroneously called “Kirche von Niedergermstädt”) on this day from a consignment on approval from Max Fischer. Accordingly, it was possible for the painting to already be offered by Ferdinand Möller in December 1932. In a set of documents from the previous registry of Galerie Ferdinand Möller, there was also an index card on “Kirche von Niedergrunstedt” with a note on the back written by Ferdinand Möller that said, “Sold January 17, 1933”.

In the course of the project, it was not possible to ascertain who acquired the painting in January 1933, before the National Socialists took power. Nor could it be established where the artwork was until it reappeared on the Berlin art market after 1945. Various obvious avenues were pursued to identify the descendants of the former collectors and dealers and make contact with them, but these did not lead to a concrete result.

(c) Berlinische Galerie