Acquisitions by the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung since 1933: determining provenance and identifying property confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution

The municipal sculpture collection in the Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main

The municipal sculpture collection, which was founded in 1907, today contains approximately 2,800 works. The concept of this collectionwhich brings together sculptures of Eastern Asia, Egypt, the ancient world, the Middle Ages and the modern era up to the 19th century in a unique waycan be traced back to the former director of the Städel Art Institute and founder of the Städtische Galerie, Georg Swarzenski (18761957). The majority of the Liebieghaus stock was acquired for the collection in the early years of the institution, i.e. in the 1910s and 1920s, and is characterized by the personality of Swarzenski, his collection strategies and his relationship with private patrons. More than 80% of the present-day Liebieghaus holdings entered the collection prior to 1933. Swarzenski, who was an expert in medieval art, was dismissed from his position of director general of the civic museums in April 1933 due to his Jewish ancestry.

More than two thirds of the objects acquired in 19331945 by the city of Frankfurt under the direction of Swarzenskis successor, Alfred Wolters (18841973)approx. 470 in numberoriginated from sales of Jewish private collections which took place as a result of persecution. During that period, the focus was on collecting old German art. In 1936, a budget was prepared for the civic museums by mayor Friedrich Krebs (18941961) to enable the purchase of artworks from Jewish owners.

Between 1940 and 1942, 14 sculptures were acquired for the Liebieghaus; these were obtained in occupied territories, i.e. France and the Netherlands, on behalf of the city of Frankfurt by Ernst Holzinger (19011972), the director of the Städel Museum.

During the Nazi era, both Wolters and Holzinger were experts for artworks belonging to Jewish owners. From 1939, Wolters was the official expert for determining nationally valuable cultural goods on behalf of the foreign currency office. Holzinger acted on behalf of the Reich Chamber of Culture as the expert for confiscating and utilizing Jewish-owned German cultural goods.

Both Wolters and his colleague Holzinger remained in office after 1945. Today, the Liebieghaus still holds 153 of the artworks acquired between 1933 and 1945; the rest were restituted immediately after the Second World War in accordance with Allied restitution laws.

In the period from the end of the war up to the present day, the Liebieghaus collection grew by around 200 more objects that were acquired after 1933.

The project

The aim of the three-year project was to systematically examine the origin and history of these works, numbering over 350 in total, and identify any that were possibly or clearly suspicious. In addition, a particular priority was to review the history of the institution and its acquisition policy in the period 19331945 and examine the cultural-political context of the immediate post-war period and the objects returned during these years. This historical review of the Nazi era and post-war period particularly needed to address the relationships with Jewish private collectors, which have received very little attention in previous research on the history of the Liebieghaus collections.

The special exhibition which emerged from the project, entitled Between Definite and Dubious. Sculptures and Their Histories. (Acquired 19331945), provides an insight into the results of the provenance and context research. The findings were presented in the form of a course that led visitors through the three main departments of the sculpture collection: antiquity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance to Classicism. The exhibition looked at the origin of 12 sculptures that had entered the Liebieghaus collection after 1933. There was a focus on the acquisitions made during the Nazi era and the stories associated with these acquisitions. Firstly, the exhibition looked at the biographies of the people who once owned the sculptures; secondly, at the courses of action and motives of the relevant directors and heads of collections who made the acquisitions. Both lawfully acquired and unlawfully acquired acquisitions were selected. However, the focus was on provenances concerning Jewish owners: Carl von Weinberg, Harry Fuld, Agathe and Ernst Saulmann, Julius Heyman, Max von Goldschmidt-Rothschild, Emma Budge, Rosmarie Sommerlat and Oswald and Alice Feis. Gaps in provenance and outstanding questions were consciously addressed as such in the exhibition.

Publications included an exhibition catalog with a timeline in German, an exhibition brochure in English and a one-pager that explores the content of the exhibition in depth, a digitorial, which is available in both German and English. Various blog entries on a range of themes relating to the project are published on the Liebieghaus website under the heading Research & Journal. The provenance of all objects examined as part of the project are also available online on the website.

(c) Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung