Research into the provenance of the Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection’s collection of paintings

Darmstadt Art Collection

Founded in 1976, the Mathildenhöhe Institute preserves, manages and continually adds to Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection. The collection currently comprises around 20,000 works of various genres from the Romantic period through to contemporary art. The provenance of the works has only been researched in a few individual cases. Thanks to generous funding from the German Lost Art Foundation, it was possible to launch a provenance research project to carry out the first ever systematic investigation of some of the paintings in Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection which were seized as a result of Nazi persecution.

History of Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection

The foundation for Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection was the municipal museum, Stadtmuseum, which was opened in 1909. From 1917, the municipal administration also acquired works by Darmstadt artists to decorate rooms. Plans to present the works of art owned by the city in museums had been under discussion for some time, and in 1937 these plans were realised at the initiative of the artist Adolf Beyer (1869-1953). The Municipal Art Collection opened on 26 May 1937 in the exhibition building on Mathildenhöhe and is thought to have been accessible to the public up until 1944. The city of Darmstadt endeavoured to further expand its art collection after the Second World War, too. The focus areas within the collection are Darmstadt painting from 1800 onwards, art and handicrafts from the Darmstadt artists’ colony, Expressionism and contemporary art.

Project objective and outcomes

The project involved conducting systematic research into the provenance of the objects in the Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection for the first time. The focus was on 529 paintings dating back to before 1945 which entered the collection after 1933. The paintings were acquired from a total of 343 individuals, institutions or art dealers, most of them purchased from private collections after 1945. In many cases there was no information on provenance and the circumstances of acquisition.

At the start of the project there was no complete documentation of ownership for any of the paintings for the period 1933 to 1945. In the case of 26 paintings, the research project was able to rule out the possibility that they were acquired as a result of Nazi persecution. For a further 19 works, the research revealed that a problematic acquisition context, although not ruled out entirely, can be categorised as unlikely. For more than 80 additional paintings it was possible to research and document comprehensive new information on the artists involved, previous provenances, ownership and acquisition circumstances.

Suspected cases and restitutions

At the start of the project, one work was noticed right away whose acquisition circumstances suggested that a more in-depth examination should be carried out. After intense research, this initial suspicion was confirmed. The provenance examination of the painting Templerschloß [Templar castle] by Eugen Bracht (1842-1921) revealed indications that it was acquired as a result of Nazi persecution. A search for heirs was successfully carried out and the city of Darmstadt is preparing the restitution of the painting. Another painting by Eugen Bracht was identified as a suspected case. The provenance check of the work Hannibals Grab [Hannibal’s Tomb] revealed that this work – acquired through the German art trade in 1988 – is from the collection of the physician Dr. Siegfried Goldschmidt (born 1874, declared dead in 1945). Goldschmidt was of Jewish descent and suffered persecution during the Nazi era. Together with his wife Martha Goldschmidt, née Itzigsohn, and his foster daughter Ingeborg Wollstein, he was deported from Berlin to an extermination camp in September 1942 and murdered. At the time of his deportation, Goldschmidt probably owned numerous paintings by Eugen Bracht, of whom he was a personal friend. The painting Hannibals Grab may have been among these works and has been entered in the Lost Art database.

State of research and unresolved questions

Another key outcome of the provenance research is the reappraisal of the institutional history of the Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection, including its predecessor and successor institutions. Thanks to the research work carried out, it was possible to establish a broad basis of information on the structure of the collection, the acquisition practice of the last 86 years, the documents available at the Mathildenhöhe Institute and the complex institutional history of the Darmstadt Municipal Art Collection. The state of research on the Municipal Art Collection was sustainably improved as a result of this provenance research. At the same time, the project also revealed the ongoing need for extensive research in other areas of the collection and also prior to accepting donations and making new acquisitions. In addition, numerous new research questions arose that need to be investigated in the future. The Mathildenhöhe Institute is endeavouring to establish provenance research at the museum on a long-term basis.

© Institut Mathildenhöhe