Vienna’s Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum) has restituted 177 botanical drawings and prints to the heirs of Dr. Ernst Moritz Kronfeld. The restitution, while somewhat delayed following a 2011 recommendation by Austria’s Advisory Council under the country’s Law for the Restitution of Artworks from the Austrian National Museums (Bundesgesetz über die Rückgabe von Kunstgegenstände aus den Österreichischen Bundesmuseen), highlights the increasing sophistication of that Advisory Council, particularly compared to recent steps backward by the Limbach Commission in Germany. Austria, once a lightening rod for criticism about confronting wartime and Nazi provenance issues, returned these drawings because of the clear problems with trying to portray any 1941 conveyance by a Viennese Jew as an arms’ length transaction—even without direct evidence of coercion. Just as importantly, it brushed away the defense that the drawings had been acquired in good faith as an excuse to continued possession, a dramatic change from the perspective usually taken by civil law countries.
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Topics:
Theresienstadt,
Lvov,
Nationalbibliothek,
Galicia,
Law for the Restitution of Artworks from the Austr,
Germany,
Nuremberg,
Nazi Victims,
Treblinka,
Dr. Rudolf Engel,
Naturhistorisches Museum,
Henry David Thoreau,
Hermann Goring,
Hitler Youth,
Mario Lanzer,
Gauleiter,
Dr. Ernst Moritz Kronfeld,
National Library,
Portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl,
Bundesgesetz über die Rückgabe von Kunstgegenständ,
Restitution,
Clara Levy,
Hapsburg,
Luxembourg,
Vienna Natural History Museum,
Ryk van der Schot,
Empress Maria Theresia,
World War II,
The Three Graces,
Franz Stefan von Lothringen,
Lemberg,
Ukraine,
Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquinn,
Rosalia Kronfeld,
Austro-Hungarian empire,
Drei Grazien,
Lovis Corinth,
Museums,
Israeli Cultural Society,
Austria’s Advisory Council,
Gustav Klimt,
Schönbrunn,
Vienna,
Anschluss,
Welfenschatz,
Baldur von Schirach,
Limbach Commission
After the 1998 Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets and the eponymous Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Stolen Art that came out of it, it is hardly surprising that a recurring theme has been to assess the progress of those nations that participated and signed on. Equally unsurprisingly, those assessments are usually more anecdotal than empirical, and usually arise out of a particular case or cases in the context of that country’s response.
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Topics:
Graham Bowley,
Macedonia,
Netherlands,
Terezin Declaration,
Mussolini,
Latvia,
Dr. Wesley A. Fisher,
Hungary,
ICOM,
Bulgaria,
Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spol,
Germany,
Bavarian Minister of Culture,
Nazi-looted art,
Die Welt,
Belarus,
Lex Gurlitt,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
France,
Dr. Ruth Weinberger,
Romania,
Baron Mor Lipot Herzog,
Winfried Bausbeck,
Belgium,
Slovakia,
Vichy,
World Jewish Restitution Organization,
Bundesrat,
Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Stolen Ar,
Gurlitt,
WJRO,
NS Raubkunst,
Restitution,
International Council of Museums,
Norway,
United States,
Luxembourg,
Looted Art,
World War II,
St. Petersburg,
Poland,
beschlagnahmte Kunst,
Ukraine,
Austria,
Serbia,
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germa,
Italy,
Bosnia,
New York Times,
Monika Grütters,
Slovenia,
Estonia,
Museum and Politics Conference,
National Gallery,
Museum of Fine Arts,
entzogogene Kunst,
Czech Republic
