German Lost Art Foundation approves approximately 1.97 million Euros for 25 provenance research projects in the area of "Nazi-looted art" in the second round of funding in 2020

It was once con­sid­ered one of the most renowned an­ti­quar­i­an book­shops in Eu­rope: Around 1900, the an­ti­quar­i­an book­shop "Jacques Rosen­thal" in Mu­nich had a stock that could com­pete with the Bavar­i­an State Li­brary. Un­der Jacques' son Er­win, the busi­ness con­tin­ued to flour­ish, but in 1935 the Na­tion­al So­cial­ists im­posed a pro­fes­sion­al ban on the Jew­ish own­er of the com­pa­ny. Er­win Rosen­thal had to hand over the com­pa­ny to an em­ploy­ee, and the fam­i­ly's pri­vate art col­lec­tion was sold, with many of the works, some of them valu­able, still miss­ing. In co­op­er­a­tion with the de­scen­dant Ju­lia Rosen­thal, the Cen­tral In­sti­tute for Art His­to­ry in Mu­nich wants to re­search what the col­lec­tion once looked like, what it com­prised and where the art­works have re­mained.

The project in Mu­nich is one of 25 re­search projects that, among oth­ers, will re­ceive fi­nan­cial sup­port from the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg start­ing in 2020. The board of the Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion, on the rec­om­men­da­tion of its " Nazi-loot­ed art " fund­ing com­mit­tee, has ap­proved around 1.97 mil­lion Eu­ros in fund­ing for the sec­ond ap­pli­ca­tion round in 2020 (ap­pli­ca­tion dead­line: June 1) for prove­nance re­search at mu­se­ums, li­braries, aca­dem­ic in­sti­tu­tions and for three pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als.

How­ev­er, it is not on­ly lost col­lec­tions that are be­ing re­con­struct­ed. For ex­am­ple, the mu­se­um and art col­lec­tion at Schloss Hin­ter­glauchau are de­vot­ing a re­search project to the works of art that the Dres­den physi­cian Paul Geipel (1869-1956) do­nat­ed to the mu­se­um from the 1940s on­ward: Geipel was al­so ac­tive as an art col­lec­tor dur­ing the Na­tion­al So­cial­ist era. He gave parts of his col­lec­tion to the Mu­se­um der bilden­den Kün­ste Leipzig, among oth­ers, which has al­ready pro­cessed its Geipel hold­ings and resti­tut­ed works. Now se­lect­ed prints and paint­ings are al­so to be ex­am­ined in Glauchau. In ad­di­tion to mu­se­ums, pri­vate in­di­vid­u­als, archives and li­braries are ded­i­cat­ing them­selves to re­search­ing their hold­ings: Hanover City Li­brary, for ex­am­ple, is now in­ves­ti­gat­ing li­brary ac­ces­sions dur­ing the Nazi era and is look­ing in­to the ex­tent to which the li­brary prof­it­ed from the ex­ploita­tion of loot­ed books at the time.

Since 2008, the fed­er­al and state gov­ern­ments have fund­ed prove­nance re­search in­to loot­ed Nazi prop­er­ty with a to­tal of 36.8 mil­lion Eu­ros, with which 372 projects have been re­al­ized to date. The Ger­man Lost Art Foun­da­tion in Magde­burg, which was found­ed on Jan­uary 1, 2015 by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, the states and lead­ing mu­nic­i­pal as­so­ci­a­tions, is the cen­tral point of con­tact in Ger­many for all ques­tions con­cern­ing un­law­ful­ly seized cul­tur­al prop­er­ty. The Foun­da­tion re­ceives in­sti­tu­tion­al fund­ing from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Me­dia, from which it al­so re­ceives fund­ing for its projects. Ap­pli­ca­tions for longer-term projects can be sub­mit­ted un­til Jan­uary 1 and June 1 of each year.