RIHA Journal

0314 Another Realism: Ion Grigorescu, Photography and Document in 1970s Romania

2023-10-16T08:44:54+02:00

In the Romanian context of the 1970s, how was it possible to produce a work of art that the authorities deemed too realistic? How can one understand the critique of an excess of realism when in 1971 the doctrine of Socialist Realism was re-established? This essay examines the notion of realism as forged by Romanian artist Ion Grigorescu. Drawing on recent writings in the theory of photography, it helps us understand how Grigorescu used the photographic medium to produce works, which, whilst adhering to realism’s principles, contravened the regime’s prescriptions. The use the artist made of the term "document" to circumvent official injunctions along with the national and international artistic sources of his work are among the questions addressed in this article to show how, even in a Communist country, dissent could walk on the paths of realism.

0299 Verlockende Struktur und gefährliche Ganzheit

2023-06-01T11:35:24+02:00

After 1945, the term 'structure' became a guiding category not only in the sciences but also in the arts. In 1965, while teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, György Kepes published in the MIT series vision + value the anthology Structure in Art and Science, which contains individual contributions by various authors from different disciplines. Through a close reading, I show how these build on elementarist concepts of the pre-World War II period, while at the same time offering connecting possibilities to so-called poststructuralist models of thought. In addition, I examine how macro photographs were used suggestively in this context to create a holistic unity of art and nature.

0298 War Painting and the Soldier as the New Man

2023-03-14T08:04:24+01:00

With his series of pilot portraits during the First World War, the Viennese painter Karl Sterrer made a significant contribution to the depiction of a modern heroic figure. It has not yet been analysed in the context of the modern soldier and his masculinity, which came under strain in the brutal trench warfare. At the mercy of an abstract war machine, the common soldiers could hardly find heroic moments to impress. Only a few new types of troops, such as the aviators, succeeded in doing so, which gave them a great deal of public recognition and made them part of modern visual culture. Ultimately, they were seen as New Man, above the horrors of modern warfare. At the same time, they were also role models for a noble habitus that met the phenomena of modernity calmly. This aspiration was evident in their elegant countenance, their extraordinary physiognomy. Unlike previous attempts in art history, however, this article provides a look at the conservative take on the subject – by a traditional, academic artist. This focus underlines the extent to which old and new soldierly values overlapped in modernity and became actualised by different artists regardless of their political orientation. The same applies to the stylistic realisation, which intertwines traditional elements with those of new movements such as New Objectivity.

0297 Aristide Maillol aux États-Unis

2023-02-10T08:44:53+01:00

Aristide Maillol is the 20th-century French sculptor best represented in American collections. In 1925–1926, his works were shown in museums in eleven cities as part of an exhibition organized by A. Conger Goodyear: Albright Art Gallery, Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art… This article traces the artist’s reception on the other side of the Atlantic and, based on a study of correspondence, highlights the role of major museum figures such as Alfred Barr, Andrew Carnduff Ritchie, and John Rewald, particularly through exhibitions, but also of dealers, especially Joseph Brummer, who helped to develop the sculptor’s American presence. These sources reveal the sometimes difficult negotiations. They also attest to the active role played by Dina Vierny, his last model and then his successor, after Maillol’s death. With the support of dealers, including Paul Rosenberg, Klaus Perls, and Otto Gerson, she significantly expanded his presence in American collections.

0295 Notes on the Early Provenance of Paolo Veronese’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison

2023-01-26T10:11:54+01:00

This article provides information about the early provenance of the Paolo Veronese painting entitled Saint Catherine of Alexandria in Prison in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting can most likely be traced back to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Augsburg. Descriptions that match the Veronese painting are found in the inventories of two very wealthy Augsburg merchants: one is in the post mortem inventory of Octavian Secundus Fugger (ca. 1600/1601), the other in a list of works of art from the collection of Hans Steininger (ca. 1641/42). Octavian Secundus Fugger only occasionally bought paintings from Venice, never seeking to amass a systematic collection of art. The deeply religious Catholic merchant, who was a strong supporter of the Jesuits, hung his picture of Saint Catherine, along with other religious paintings, in the antechapel of his house, and it remained at this location until the early 17th century. The painting’s later owner, however, the Lutheran textile merchant Hans Steininger, was a highly educated art collector who created one of the most illustrious collections in Augsburg. In his Kunstkammer, Veronese’s painting was displayed in the company of mythological female figures, nymphs, and Venus, accompanied by a whole series of paintings by renowned artists such as Hans von Aachen, Christoph Amberger, Paris Bordone, Hans Burgkmair, Joseph Heintz and Titian. Steininger’s collection was dispersed after his death, but many of the paintings he owned can still be identified. Veronese’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria may be one of them.

0288 The Annihilation of the German Numismatic Market during the Nazi Era, with Some Observations on the Countermeasures Adopted by Jewish Ancient Coin Dealers

2022-12-13T12:30:53+01:00

This paper shows that the Nazi persecution of Jewish coin dealers and collectors prominent in Germany’s economic and cultural life resulted in a weakening of the domestic numismatic market. The failure of Nazi cultural-economic policy is illustrated by a study of the trade in ancient coins. While the Nazi authorities (e.g., Foreign Exchange Offices, Customs) failed to prevent the export of numismatic assets, the most prominent Jewish dealers were able to reestablish their businesses abroad, especially in Switzerland as the new international trading center for ancient coins. Their non-Jewish German colleagues, in turn, had great difficulty filling the gaps in the supply of ancient coins in the German Reich left by the Jews who had emigrated or fled.

0291 "Unclaimed" Artworks Entrusted to French Museums after World War II

2022-12-13T10:54:43+01:00

Between 1949 and 1953, about 2,100 “unclaimed” artworks returned to France from Germany after World War II were selected by museum professionals and labeled MNR (Musées nationaux récupération). About half of the works are paintings, while thirty percent are decorative arts, and the remaining pieces are drawings, sculptures, folk art, Asian art, and antiquities. This paper presents the so-called AOR (Antiquités orientales récupération), 31 objects entrusted to the care of the Département des Antiquités orientales, Musée du Louvre, which at the time included both pre-Islamic and Islamic objects. Research carried out by the Mission Mattéoli (1997–2000) determined that only two, maybe three, artworks are proven to have been looted by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg during the Nazi occupation of France. The rest of the AOR items were purchases made by German individuals and museums, confirming that the MNR corpus does not equate in its entirety to art plundered from Jewish collections. The study of this portion of the works is an opportunity to shed light on the Near Eastern art and antiquities market in Paris during the war.

0290 The Antiquities Trade during the German Occupation of France, 1940–1944

2022-12-13T10:26:07+01:00

Despite the confiscation of many art collections, mainly from Jewish families, the Parisian art market was prosperous during the German occupation of France, from 1940 to 1944. This boom was also driven by the vast number of purchases made by German museums. After the war, most of these acquisitions were returned to France, with postwar investigations focusing on the recovery of paintings. The lack of interest in other types of art may explain, at least in part, why the acquisitions made by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin during the Occupation have been ignored for so long. Mainly antiquities, they are still part of the collections today. As this case study of the holdings of the Ägyptisches Museum in Berlin shows, these acquisitions can serve as a starting point for learning more about the antiquities dealers active during the Occupation.

0289 The Patronage of Berlin’s Egyptian Museum by German-Jewish Press Tycoon Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920) and the Sequestration of His Art Collection during the "Third Reich"

2022-12-13T09:41:56+01:00

The publishing tycoon Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920) donated over 700 objects to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin between 1892 and 1894, among them the Green Head from a royal statue of Amasis (ÄM 11864). Most had been acquired on the antiquities market by Egyptologist Heinrich Brugsch (1827–1894) during his journey to Egypt in 1891–1892, which was financed by Mosse. Leaving aside postcolonial discourse regarding the appropriation of ancient Egyptian artifacts by European travelers and scholars, this case study highlights another important and long-neglected aspect of the early history of German Egyptology: patronage or private support provided by Jewish entrepreneurs. Only recently a wider public was reminded of the engagement of James Simon (1851–1932), the most significant sponsor of the Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft (German Oriental Society), whose gifts to the Egyptian Museum in Berlin included the painted bust of Queen Nefertiti. This article—which is based on the findings of a multi-author volume published jointly by the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish Studies in Potsdam and the Egyptian Museum in Berlin—discusses the prehistory of the seizure and sale of Mosse’s private art collection in 1934, including Egyptian antiquities, and the attempted damnatio memoriae of him. The goal is to open a discussion with a broader, more complex approach, employing strategies of provenance research, to document the efforts and achievements of Jewish patrons of the arts and thus avoid their reduction to victims.

0292 The Fate of the Antiquities Collection of Izabela Działyńska (neé Czartoryska)

2022-12-13T09:17:23+01:00

The collection of antiquities displayed at Gołuchów castle in Poland by Izabela Działyńska was one of the largest private collections in Europe of ancient works of art from the Middle East, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Ancient pottery, stelae from Cyprus, fragments of Roman marble sculpture, and a large collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts were exhibited in the Greek Vases Hall, the Antiquities Hall, and the Egyptian Hall. The invasion of Poland by Nazi troops on 1 September 1939 and the attack of Soviet troops on 17 September started a two-front war in Poland. On 28 September 1939, the German-Soviet Frontier and Friendship Treaty was signed, marking the border between the two aggressors on Polish lands along the line of the rivers San-Bug-Narew-Pisa. This division of Poland continued until the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941. As a result of these wartime events, the collection of Izabela Działyńska was dispersed. Many of the objects are now in various museums in Poland, but some, including ancient artefacts and other valuable works of art, are considered lost. It cannot be ruled out that some were destroyed.

0287 Export Regulations and the Role of Ancient Objects in the German List of Nationally Important Artworks

2022-12-12T12:27:11+01:00

The paper provides a brief overview of art export regulations in the Mediterranean region from the 19th century to the laws adopted in the 1920s and 1930s. It then focuses on the German law of 1919 requiring works of art that were predominantly privately owned and of outstanding value to be entered in a register, the so-called List of Nationally Important Artworks. Once the works were listed in this index, they were subject to authorization for export. Despite the high importance the National Socialists attributed to Greek and Roman art as an eternal art, only one percent of the artworks that were classified as nationally valuable were from ancient periods. The instrumentalization of the export regulation through the National Socialist regime is illustrated by the example of Albert Lévy’s collection of antiquities in Hamburg. For provenance research, it is essential to determine how laws were extended, applied, bypassed, or overruled during National Socialism and, thus, instrumentalized as a means of state power.

0286 Stolen and Returned: The Marble Statue of "Philippe" from Samos

2022-12-12T12:15:14+01:00

For almost a year, from November 1943 to October 1944, the Greek island of Samos was under German occupation. General Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, who was responsible for Samos, ruthlessly exploited his position of power and attempted to secretly take the Philippe, a female statue of the so-called Geneleos Group, out of the country. Fortunately, this criminal action and the planned transport of the statue to Trier were prevented by the Kunstschutz of the Wehrmacht. Finally, in 1954, the Philippe was returned from the Athens National Museum to Samos, where it is now exhibited in the archaeological museum of Vathi. The adventure of the Philippe statue sheds light on the situation of the antiquities on Samos during the German occupation. Selected sources will also be used to show how the Kunstschutz officers proceeded in their rescue operations and how they themselves defined their role as part of the German Wehrmacht after the war.

0285 Göring’s Collection of Antiquities at Carinhall

2022-12-12T11:42:59+01:00

This article deals with some ancient objects from the collection of leading National Socialist Hermann Göring that are on loan to the Berlin Antikensammlung from the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Originally, they were stored or displayed at Carinhall, Göring’s estate ca. 60 km from Berlin, where he kept his precious works of art. The antiquities were not the most important part of his collection. However, some interesting questions arise about the provenance of the objects and the reasons why he displayed certain archaeological objects in Carinhall.

0284 The Role of Antiquities between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany

2022-12-12T11:08:00+01:00

This article analyzes the antiquities trade between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the construction of the two regimes’ diplomatic relationship before and during World War II. Both regimes made antiquities a medium of their political and ideological propaganda. During the delicate stages of their alliance in and after 1936, the Fascist regime, which considered itself the legitimate heir of the ancient Roman Empire, intensified the promotion of its role as a leading arbiter of cultural matters. A sense of Italian cultural superiority underlay the antiquities gifted or authorized for export to fulfill the Nazi leaders’ requests. Alongside this ‘legitimate’ trade, many other antiquities were illegally exported, sold, or stolen by art dealers, troops, and common citizens. Drawing on intense archival research conducted in Italian archives, the article presents different cases that shed light on the ways in which antiquities were manipulated for ideological and political purposes by the Fascist and Nazi regimes.

0294 A Goddess of the Night, a Roman Gem, and the Bachstitz Gallery

2022-12-12T10:12:35+01:00

Two Roman objects in the J. Paul Getty Museum, a bronze statuette of the moon goddess Luna and a cornelian gem, were among the handful of classical antiquities acquired for Adolf Hitler’s unrealized "Führermuseum" in Linz. This study presents new provenance research that tracks their itinerary from European private collections to the gallery of Kurt Walter Bachstitz, a prominent Jewish art dealer active in The Hague between the 1920s and the 1940s. His precarious personal and business relationships with German art agents expose how ordinary commerce was entangled with coerced sales in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. In 2015, the ownership of works that changed hands on wartime art markets informed the Dutch Restitution Committee’s recommendation to return the gem to Bachstitz’s heirs but to reject their claim on the statuette. Having passed through several collections following their restitution after World War II, the two objects were reunited at the Getty in 2017.

0293 A Case Study in Plunder and Restitution

2022-12-12T09:13:14+01:00

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.

0283 Collecting Classical Antiquities among the Nazi Elite

2022-12-12T09:08:57+01:00

Classical antiquity was appropriated by the Nazis and held up as the ideal in the rhetoric, propaganda, art, and architecture of National Socialism. In this article the rhetoric and preference for the classical aesthetic are examined against the practice of collecting antiquities among the Nazi elite, especially by Hitler and Göring. It would seem evident that Greek and Roman antiquities would have been much desired by Hitler and the upper echelons of the Nazi party and would have been sought after in the quest for great works of art for museums in the Reich, especially for the “Führermuseum” in Linz. Yet, there is only limited evidence to show that this was, in fact, the case. Insights and explanations for this discrepancy are gleaned from synthesizing the evidence for collecting classical antiquities during the Nazi era.

0282 Antiquities in the Nazi Era: Contexts and Broader View

2022-12-12T09:01:42+01:00

This introduction presents an overview of the research questions and the challenges involved in studying the fate of Middle Eastern, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities during the Nazi era. Since the antiquities markets and the methods of trade, disappearance, and confiscation of ancient archaeological objects varied a great deal across Europe and the Middle East during the Nazi period, this article examines the evidence in individual countries, both in source countries where the archaeological objects originated and in market countries where antiquities were collected, traded, or confiscated—including the United States. Finally, some conclusions gleaned from this broader study are presented, including from the articles in this special issue.

Preface

2022-12-12T08:51:25+01:00

This publication was inspired by the 2017–2019 German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP) and is a direct outcome of a PREP public session on "The Fate of Antiquities in the Nazi Era" held at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich on 10 October 2018. A number of the authors contributing to this volume participated in the PREP workshops over the three-year period or were organizers or hosts in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Berlin, Munich, and Dresden. PREP created a cohort of museum professionals and scholars in Germany and the US and stimulated an exchange of ideas and information on provenance studies of the Nazi period, creating collegial relationships that are furthering the field of provenance studies. The authors of this publication represent museums, universities, and research institutes in the US, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, and Poland and extend the original PREP network.

Foreword

2022-12-12T08:49:58+01:00

The German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program (PREP; 2017–2019) was jointly initiated and organized by the Smithsonian Institution and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Although in the past decades, research into Nazi-era looted art has been widespread and provenance research in this field has blossomed, the fate of antiquities has rarely been in the spotlight and is far less systematically studied. This volume makes a large contribution to filling this void. The real strength of this publication is, however, that it brings together so many different facets from which a bigger picture emerges. It is valuable not just for readers with an interest in antiquities but also for scholars studying the art market and its mechanisms; for researchers exploring the networks and systems by which artworks were dispersed during the Nazi era and studying the history of restitution; and for art historians interested in the history of collecting and taste.