0293 A Case Study in Plunder and Restitution

Three Ancient Sculptures from the Lanckoroński Collection

  • Victoria S. Reed (Author)
    Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

    Victoria S. Reed is the Sadler Senior Curator for Provenance at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In this role she oversees provenance research and documentation and coordinates due diligence policies and practices for the curatorial division. Dr. Reed has been conducting provenance research since 2001 and has spoken and published widely on topics including art restitution, museum ethics, and the history of collecting.

Identifiers (Article)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/riha.2022.2.92737

Abstract

In this article I examine the methodology and resources used to trace the provenance of three ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). They belonged to Karol Lanckoroński (1848–1933) of Vienna, were looted during the Nazi era, and were returned to the Lanckoroński family following World War II. In discussing these sculptures, I consider the relative challenges of researching ancient works of art compared to Modern and Early Modern European paintings and sculptures, drawing on other case studies of Nazi-era looting from the collection of the MFA.

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Issue
2023: Special Issue "The Fate of Antiquities in the Nazi Era"
Section
Object Case Studies
Categories
Antiquity; Sculpture; Collecting & Exhibiting; Art Market & Provenance
Language
en
Keywords
provenance research, Nazi-era looting, Lanckoroński, antiquities, restitution

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.