Exhuming Inventory

The (Re)Discovery of Paintings’ Provenance. A Strasbourg History

Abstract

Based on provenance research at the Musée des Beaux-Arts and the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Strasbourg and supported by the French Minister of Culture, this article looks at the different contexts in which artworks were acquired between 1940 and 1945. Whereas Tessa Rosebrock’s research in 2004 focused on the acquisitions made by the Generaldirektion der Oberrheinischen Museen between 1940 and 1944, this new research complements Rosebrock’s findings and uncovers two major sources of enrichment for the collections during this period. On the one hand, alongside official acquisitions made by the Generaldirektion, the museums were entrusted with the management of artworks from the sequestration of the property of “enemies of the people and the Reich”. Despite some restitutions being conducted immediately after the war, several artworks with an encumbered provenance remained in the collections. Moreover, in the post-war imbroglios, artworks from the Neue Reichskanzlei in Berlin, found in a castle in Germany in 1945 by a French Army Captain, were deposited in Strasbourg. Their provenance had been forgotten until today. This article focuses on these two contexts and explains the research methodology employed. Methodologically, this discovery is the result of an interest in works whose provenance remained unknown and which were inventoried retroactively during the mid-2000s. By comparing the inventories with registers in French and German archives, it has been possible to determine the provenance of these artworks. In addition, the article demonstrates the importance of considering the paintings in their materiality as a historical source.