2009 - Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

52
Items handed over to the Gotha Museum
by the Grünes Gewölbe: Ivory knife and fork,
maker unknown, 17th cent, ...
Cooperative partner: Staatliche
Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen
• Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Ethnographischen
Sammlungen Sachsen Vol. XLIV.
VWB – Verlag für Wissenschaft und
Bildung Berlin, 2007 (published in 2009)
• Auf der Suche nach Vielfalt. Ethnographie
und Geographie in Leipzig. Anlässlich des
600. Gründungsjubiläums der Universität
Leipzig. Edited by Sebastian Lentz, Claus
Deimel and Bernhard Streck. Leipzig, 2009
• Hans-Peter Kästner, Amazonien. Indianer
der Regenwälder und Savannen. Exhibition
by the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden.
Dresden, 2009
... Ivory figure of Venus, maker unknown,
17th cent. ...
RESEARCH AN D
REStItUtIONS
As in previous years, the search for property
belonging to the former Saxon royal family
was a major task for provenance research
at the museums of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden during 2009. This
search focused particularly on works of art
which had been seized and confiscated by
the Soviet occupying power in the castles
of Moritzburg and Wachwitz at the end of
the war in 1945. Some of these items had
later been handed over to museums by the
occupying power. The representatives of the
House of Wettin presented the Staatliche
Kunstsammlungen Dresden with a long list
of demands. In the Porzellansammlung the
extensive research work has now more or
less been completed; however, owing to the
confidentiality agreement between the Free
State of Saxony and the House of Wettin
details cannot be made public until the negotiations
have been finalised. These negotiations
concerning the findings of the researchers
of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden continued throughout the year 2009
and are to be completed in 2010.
Other museums of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden presented their detailed
research concepts in the summer, on the basis
of which their search for property belonging
... and three ivory knives, maker unknown, 17th cent.
to the House of Wettin on 8th May 1945 is
to be conducted during the next two years.
The search for property belonging to other
museums which had been misdirected upon
the return of hundreds of thousands of
works of art from the USSR in the late 1950s
has already led to some pleasing results. For
example, two paintings – one with obvious
war damage – which had been considered
war losses of the Stiftung Staatliche Schlösser
und Gärten Potsdam, were identified in
the store room of the Gemäldegalerie Alte
Meister. They were handed over to colleagues
from Potsdam at the end of July. The research
work in the storeroom of the Grünes Gewölbe
led to the finding of 13 works of art which
had formerly been considered war losses of
the Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha.
These precious items, including an ivory
statuette of Venus, were handed over to
the Gotha museum at the beginning of
December.
The provenance research conducted in the
museums of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden, which includes the systematic
investigation of all acquisitions since 1933,
has also brought about other remarkable
results. For example, the inventory of the
Galerie Neue Meister records the purchase
from a Munich art dealer in 1940 of a painting
which it was possible to identify through
research in the archives of Munich and
Vienna as having been the confiscated
property of a Viennese Jewish family.