Provenance research

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The provenance research (also provenance research , provenance development or origin research ) is dedicated to the history of the origin ( provenance ) of works of art and cultural goods. It is understood as a sub-discipline of history or art history. Ideally, all previous ownership ( provenances ) of an exhibit are known. Special challenges exist in Germany by art theft in connection with the Nazi period affected countries in the so-called trophy art and looted art . In addition, the report on the restitution of African cultural goods since 2018 has led to intensive discussions and new research on the provenance of such cultural goods from colonial contexts .

Basics and development

Provenance research is dedicated to the scientific research of the origin and the changing ownership of a work of art, cultural or archival material in museums, libraries, archives, but also in the art and antiques trade.

On the one hand, data is evaluated that is located directly on the object in question: lettering on the back, artist and owner notices for paintings, handwritten entries, marginalia , dedications , initials , stamps or ex-libris for books and archive materials. On the other hand, external materials such as catalogs , files, sales documents from the art trade, auction and exhibition catalogs, archival materials or letters are examined for information from previous owners.

Research into previous ownership or custody relationships serves, among other things, to confirm the originality of cultural assets, and in particular works of art, and can contribute to increasing their value. They are also used to reconstruct scholarly libraries or to obtain biographical data. In particular, it also serves to determine the ownership structure.

Provenance research according to the Washington Declaration

Provenance research in public museums and collections gained enormous importance in 1998 with the signing of the Washington Declaration by 44 states. The signatory states, including Germany, have undertaken, among other things, to locate works of art that were confiscated during the Nazi era in their holdings, to look for their rightful owners and to find fair and equitable solutions. The works of art that were stolen from the mostly Jewish victims between 1933 and 1945 often passed into the possession of public and private collections. In the post-war period, there were only inadequate returns, so that even today there are several thousand works of art originally owned by Jews, often unrecognized, in museums. With the obligation to uncover these unexplained origins, researching the history and origin of a work of art became a labor-intensive central research field of museum work, because all works of art that were created before 1945 and purchased or taken over after 1933 can theoretically come from looted art holdings. On March 28, 2007, a hearing on looted art with lawyers, historians and museum representatives took place in the Bundestag's cultural committee . It became clear that for the required intensification of provenance research, greater financial resources would have to be available.

Lost Art Database

A coordination office for the loss of cultural property was set up in Magdeburg as the central public institution . On behalf of the federal government and the federal states, it documents international search and found reports both on cultural property confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution and on looted art brought in in connection with the Second World War via its Internet database "Lost Art", which is freely accessible worldwide . The database now lists around 100,000 objects from the above-mentioned areas, as well as numerous collective reports whose individual objects can neither be quantified nor qualified due to historical circumstances (around 3.5 million). “Lost Art” registers all cultural assets , regardless of their material value; Furniture is listed here as well as paintings , incunabula , sculptures , books , music and handicrafts . The aim of the work of the coordination office is to enable the identification of the origin and the owner of works of art by collecting and publishing search and found reports; it is not mandated to carry out independent provenance research.

Provenance research working group and first chairs for provenance research in Germany

In 2008, the Provenance Research Center was set up at the Institute for Museum Research of the National Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. Its task is to support museums, libraries, archives and other publicly maintained institutions that preserve cultural assets, particularly materially, in their provenance research. A budget of one million euros per year was made available for this purpose, which was increased to two million in 2012. Provenance research by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Bavarian State Painting Collections are described as exemplary . Positions have been set up in these museums and filled with art historians who are exclusively dedicated to researching the origin of the museum exhibits.

At the end of 2015, on the initiative of the Alfried-Krupp-von-Bohlen-und-Halbach-Stiftung, the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn established the first nationwide professorship for provenance research and, in addition, a junior professorship for provenance research at the Institute for Art History. In 2016, a junior professorship for provenance research in the past and present was set up at the University of Hamburg's art history seminar for a period of six years.

The report on the restitution of African cultural goods to French President Emmanuel Macron, published at the end of 2018, attracted international attention to cultural goods from Africa in European collections. The International Provenance Research Day took place on April 10, 2019 to make the topic and the work of scientists known to the general public. More than 70 cultural institutions in Germany, Great Britain, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland took part. According to the declaration of intent of the Provenance Research Working Group, the day of provenance research should be repeated annually.

From July 2016 to December 2019, a German-Tanzanian working group investigated in the pilot project: Tanzania – Germany: Divided Object Stories? Objects of the Ethnological Museum Berlin from what was then German East Africa . This processing of the history of the Tanzania collection was carried out in cooperation with Tanzanian scientists, artists and actors from the societies of origin of the objects. Through this complementary German-African approach, provenance research in Germany is expanded to include the dimension of exchange and participation of African experts and their current assessment of the historical cultural assets in the country of origin. Similar initiatives took place in 2019 at the Goethe Institutes in seven African capitals.

Provenance research on human remains

In recent years, provenance research on human remains in natural science collections and ethnological museums has increased. This particularly applies to human skulls and bones from non-European countries, most of which were acquired during the colonial era. In particular, interdisciplinary research projects are increasingly looking into the question of the cultural origin of these collection items and looking into the circumstances of their acquisition and transfer to European and American collections. Both the determination of possible contexts of injustice and the possibility of restitutions to the respective culture of origin play a role here.

Provenance research in Austria

In Austria, provenance research is carried out in particular by the Austrian National Library , the Museum of Art History , the Museum of Military History , the Picture Gallery and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna , the Albertina , the Austrian Belvedere Gallery , the Imperial Furniture Collection , the Museum of Applied Arts , the Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation , the Theater Museum , the Technical Museum and the World Museum (all Vienna). The basis is the Federal Act on the Return of Works of Art of December 4, 1998 (BGBl. I, 181/1998). The Commission for Provenance Research was set up by the responsible Federal Ministry for Education, Art and Culture, whose scientific staff check the inventories, archives and objects for evidence of provenance in numerous federal museums and collections. The University Library of the University of Vienna has been running a research project on provenance research since 2004 . In 2008, a number of libraries founded the NS Provenance Research working group , which examines the holdings from 1938 to 1945. Represented in the working group are: a. the University Library of the Medical University of Vienna , the Vienna Library in the City Hall , the University and Regional Library of Tyrol , the University Library of Salzburg , the University Library of Graz and the Jewish Museum Vienna .

Provenance research in the art trade

In the art trade , the origin of a work of art has always played a major role, as the originality could be traced back, but it also increased the value of the object. The private law sellers are not directly affected by the Washington Declaration - but the debate about looted art is now having an impact, so that the international art trade has also been increasingly conducting provenance research in recent years.

Paintings that are identified as Nazi-looted art repeatedly end up in auctions. Up until the 1990s, there were seldom legal disputes in this regard, but since the dissemination of information, catalogs and auction announcements on the Internet, these works have been recognized, so that return requests were often made. The same goes for stolen works of art. Large auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie's have had their own provenance research departments for several years.

The Art Loss Register , not to be confused with the Lost Art database in Magdeburg, is the world's largest, privately run database. It includes lost and stolen cultural goods above a certain minimum value; in 2005 it documented over 180,000 works of art. The art trade can have its offers checked for a fee, companies and private individuals can also register stolen works of art for a fee or have them checked whether individual works are stolen property. The police have free access to this database. The Art Loss Register is not freely accessible to the public, so that thieves cannot see whether the stolen goods are listed there.

literature

  • Johannes Schwartz: What is provenance research? The Washington principles, their implementation in Germany and research in the state capital Hanover , in: Museum August Kestner, Johannes Schwartz and Simone Vogt (eds.), Traces of Nazi persecution. Provenance research in the cultural and historical collections of the city of Hanover, Wienand Verlag, Cologne 2019, pp. 16–25.
  • Contributions from public institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany to dealing with cultural goods from former Jewish property (= publications by the Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property, 1). Modifications made by Ulf Häder. Magdeburg 2001, ISBN 3-00-008868-7 .
  • Your own STORY. Provenance research at German art museums in an international comparison. Conference from February 20 to 22, 2002 in Hamburg, published by the Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property Magdeburg (= publications of the Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property, 2). Worked by Ulf Häder with the assistance of Katja Terlau and Ute Haug. Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-00-010235-3 .
  • Loss of cultural property, provenance research and restitution. Dealing with contaminated collections in museums, libraries and archives (= museum building blocks, 10) . Published by the State Office for Non-State Museums in Bavaria. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-422-06575-8 .
  • Silke Reuther: The Art Collection Philipp F. Reemtsma. Origin and history. Gebrüder Mann Verlag, Berlin 2006.
  • Vitalizing memory. International Perspectives on Provenance Research. Published by the American Association of Museums . Washington 2005, ISBN 1-933253-02-9 .
  • Felwine Sarr , Bénédicte Savoy : Giving back. About the restitution of African cultural assets. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-95757-763-4 .
  • Sophie Lillie : What once was. Handbook of the expropriated art collections of Vienna. Czernin Verlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-7076-0049-1 .
  • Ilse von zur Mühlen: Hermann Göring's art collection. A provenance report from the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen. Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-8321-7498-9 .
  • Alexandra Reininghaus (ed.): Recollecting - Robbery and Restitution. [Publication on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in the Museum of Applied Arts, MAK Vienna , December 3, 2008 - February 15, 2009]. Passagen-Verlag, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-85165-887-3 .
  • Nils Seethaler: The Charité Human Remains Project - interdisciplinary research and restitution of human remains. In: Communications of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, Volume 33, 2012, pp. 103-108.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gesa Grimme: Provenance research in the project "Difficult legacy: dealing with objects from the colonial era in ethnological museums" - final report. Linden-Museum Stuttgart, March 2018, accessed on September 3, 2019 .
  2. ^ Pearson, David: Provenance research in book history: a handbook. British Library, London 1994.
  3. ↑ Constantin Goschler: Two waves of restitution. The return of Jewish property after 1945 and 1990. In: Inka Bertz, Michael Dorrmann (eds.): Looted art and restitution. Jewish property from 1933 to the present day. Frankfurt a. M. 2008, p. 30.
  4. ^ Final report of the study commission “Culture in Germany”. German Bundestag, printed matter 16/7000 of December 11, 2007, p. 122 (PDF).
  5. ↑ Lost Art: Coordination office for the loss of cultural property in Magdeburg
  6. ↑ Office for provenance research / research. Former homepage of the job ( memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ).
  7. ↑ Nationwide first endowed chairs for provenance research. University of Bonn, December 16, 2015.
  8. ↑ Johannes Seiler : Nazi looted art, protection of cultural assets and colonial heritage. Three new professorships form a new focus In: forsch (Bonner Universitäts-Magazin), No. 2/2018, pp. 26-27.
  9. ↑ Universität Hamburg Newsletter September 2016, No. 88 Research: The Liebelts donate professorship for provenance research in art history , accessed on January 9, 2018
  10. ↑ Felwine Sarr, Bénédicte Savoy: Rapport sur la restitution du patrimoine culturel africain. Vers une nouvelle éthique relationnelle. Paris 2018; English translation The Restitution of African Cultural Heritage. Toward a New Relational Ethics ( Download original French and English translation, pdf )
  11. ↑ The Provenance Research Working Group is an association of scientists that has existed since 2000 and has been a registered association since 2014. (Register number VR 36974, District Court Berlin-Charlottenburg)
  12. ↑ 1st International Provenance Research Day 2019 , accessed on June 1, 2019.
  13. ^ National Museums in Berlin: National Museums in Berlin: Museums & Facilities - Ethnological Museum - Collecting & Research - Research - Tanzania - Germany: Divided Object Stories? Retrieved April 11, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Museum Talks 2019 - Goethe-Institut Namibia. Retrieved April 11, 2020 .
  15. ^ Nils Seethaler : The Charité Human Remains Project - interdisciplinary research and restitution of human remains. In: Communications of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, Volume 33, 2012, pp. 103-108.
  16. ↑ Return of colonial skulls ends in dispute on spiegel.de, accessed on May 15, 2018
  17. ^ Federal collections. Commission for Provenance Research Austria, accessed on July 21, 2017.
  18. ↑ Nazi provenance research. University Library, University of Vienna, accessed on February 18, 2011.
  19. ^ AG NS provenance research. Association of Austrian Librarians, accessed on February 21, 2011.
  20. ^ The Art Loss Register. London (English).