Restitutions
Verification concluded
Watercolour, to the heirs of Valerie Heissfeld
Represented by the Commission for Looted Art, London, the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (State Collection of Prints and Drawings) in Munich successfully restituted the watercolour Der alte Nordbahnhof Wien (Koschatzky no. 51/03, inv. no. 45626 Z, watercolour, 125 x 185 mm), to the heirs of Valerie Heissfeld (date of birth unknown, murdered on 13 April 1942 in Theresienstadt), in September 2011. The request for restitution as well as the research on the Heissfeld family came from the Commission. Valerie Heissfeld’s husband, the Imperial and Royal Staff Surgeon Dr. Jakob Heissfeld (1871–1915), who was killed in World War I, had assembled a collection of Austrian art. The sheet by Rudolf von Alt, Der alte Nordbahnhof Wien, dated 1851, first appeared in the auction catalogue of C.G. Boerner, Leipzig, in 1922, under the title Der Nordbahnhof in Wien im Winter (16 November 1922, C. G. Boerner, Leipzig, collection of exquisite watercolours by Rudolf von Alt, formerly in royal ownership, cat. no. 12 with illus.). As Rudolf von Alt only painted a few watercolours in 1851 and there is no evidence of another sheet of this subject with the same title from another year, the work can be accurately identified. No documentation exists on when the work came into the possession of Valerie Heissfeld’s daughter, Lotte. The work is included on the list ‘Ansuchen auf Ausfuhrbewilligung’ (request for permission to export) dated 9 September 1938 under the title Nordbahnhof, and was therefore quite clearly in Valerie Heissfeld’s possession at this time. After the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, Valerie Heissfeld felt forced to leave Austria on account of her Jewish faith. She managed to emigrate from Vienna to Brno in Czechoslovakia in February 1939. While preparing to emigrate she applied for an export licence to take her art collection with her to Czechoslovakia. This was granted on 9 September 1938. Through the intervention of the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (monuments office) several works, however, were withheld, including the watercolour Der alte Nordbahnhof by Rudolf von Alt; i.e. permission to export it was refused. Valerie Heissfeld felt forced to sell the work through the art gallery and auctioneers, Artaria, on 20 December 1938. Just as little is known about the sales price as to whether Valerie Heissfeld ever received the proceeds. Artaria then sold the watercolour to a private customer. According to his own statement, the Munich art dealer Eugen Brüschwiler acquired the work from a private collector in Munich. As the trustee of the Nazi Party he then sold it to the Reichsleiter of the NSDAP, Martin Bormann, on 1 July 1942 in Munich. The work was given to the Bavarian Minister President, being the representative of the Free State of Bavaria, on 30 June 1949, having been at the Central Collecting Point in Munich since 29 October 1945. It was not legally handed over to the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München until 14 February 1973, following its transfer from the inventory of the CCP (no. 40) into that of the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München (inv. no. 45626 Z). Valerie Heissfeld’s son, Karel Gabriel Heissfeld (b. 1906), died on 23 January 1938 in Brno. Her daughter, Lotte, managed to emigrate to England on 1 March 1939. After her mother was murdered, she was the only member of family still alive.
Drawing, to the heirs of Dr. Michael Berolzheimer
A sheet by the Florentine painter and draughtsman Andrea Boscoli (1560–1607) in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung (State Collection of Prints and Drawings) in Munich – for which the heirs of Dr. Michael Berolzheimer (1866–1942) filed a restitution claim through the Holocaust Claims Processing Office in a letter dated 5 June 2012 – remains in the collection in Munich following a commensurate compensational payment. Thanks to research by the Holocaust Claims Processing Office, Department of Financial Services, New York and subsequent checks by the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München it became evident that the sheet, depicting a scene from the life of St. Anthony, had formerly been in the collection of Dr. Michael Berolzheimer. Due to his Jewish extraction, Berolzheimer’s property was expropriated and he felt forced to emigrate. At the time the sheet was acquired by the SGSM at an auction at Ketterer’s on 5/6 May 2003 (282nd auction, Tremmel Collection) the Berolzheimer provenance was not known. This case demonstrates in exemplary form how important foundation research is to establish the injustice perpetrated by the Nazis on citizens of Jewish ancestry. Only through intensified provenance research can the ownership of artworks in the 1930s and ’40s be clarified step by step and light thrown in the darkness surrounding expropriation. Dr. Michael Berolzheimer was a member of the Vereinigung der Freunde der Staatlichen Graphischen Sammlung München (Assocation of Friends of the State Collection of Prints and Drawings in Munich), probably up until his forced emigration. His heirs, therefore, generously declared their intention to hand the drawing over to the Assocation of Friends of the State Collection of Prints and Drawings in Munich, in 2014, as a reminder of the injustice that Dr. Berolzheimer experienced, so that it can remain in the museum and the collection commemorate its erstwhile benefactor.
Staatsminister Dr. Spaenle, Karl P. Mautner und Marguerite Mautner Ballard im Studiensaal der Staatlichen Graphischen Sammlung München, Foto: Gunnar Gustafsson, ©SGSM
Restitution of the watercolour The Artist’s Workroom by Rudolf von Alt to the heirs of Elsa and Stephan Mautner
On 30 November 2016 the Minister of State, Dr. Ludwig Spaenle, was able to restitute the watercolour The Artist’s Workroom by Rudolf von Alt to its rightful owners, the heirs of Elsa and Stephan Mautner. The previous owner of the work, the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München (State Collection of Prints and Drawings, Munich), is particularly pleased that, in the course of this transfer, the work has now been given to the museum on permanent loan from its new owner, the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation. The watercolour is the last work painted by this artist of pivotal importance to Austrian art in the 19th century, and remains unfinished. This exceptional work, which marks the end of an artistic career lasting almost eighty years, was like a keystone to the extensive collection of works by von Alt, unique outside Austria, in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München. It was also in the interest of the collectors’ grandson who lives in the USA that the work remains accessible to the general public while, at the same time, testifying to the esteem held for the art of von Alt by his grandparents – who were murdered in Auschwitz – and to the dark side of the work’s provenance.