Nazi Era Provenance Research

Nazi Era provenance research is an ongoing priority for the Princeton University Art Museum, with the aim of determining that objects acquired by the Museum after 1932 were not stolen, seized, sold under duress, or otherwise unlawfully dispossessed between 1933 and 1945. The Museum adheres to the recommendations of the Report of the Association of Art Museum Directors’ Task Force on the Spoliation of Art during the Nazi/World War II Era (1933-1945) (issued 1998) and the American Alliance of Museums Guidelines Concerning the Unlawful Appropriation of Objects During the Nazi Era (issued November 1999; amended April 2001)

History of Nazi-Looted Art 

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazi regime orchestrated and carried out an extensive and systematic campaign of looting, theft, and confiscation of art and cultural objects from individual collectors, as well as from public and private museums, institutions, religious communities and archeological sites within Germany and across occupied territories in Europe. The regime seized thousands of works of art, particularly from Jewish collectors and dealers; it also placed them under immense financial pressure, forcing sales of collections at below market value. 

From 1944, the Allied Forces sought to recover works of art previously in Nazi possession and restitute them to their rightful owners and heirs. Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives officials – including two future Princeton University Art Museum directors, Major Patrick “Joe” Kelleher and Ernest T. DeWald – created collecting points from which to return recovered objects to their country of origin. Still, many works of art could not be recovered and continued to circulate on the art market after 1945.  

Nazi Era Provenance Research at the Princeton University Art Museum  

The Museum strictly observes international guidelines for Nazi era provenance. Prior to acquiring a work, curators request provenance from donors and sellers and undertake independent provenance research as necessary. The Museum does not acquire works for which there is credible evidence of unlawful appropriation.  

The Museum maintains a list of works in the collection of European Painting and Sculpture that changed hands or could have changed hands in continental Europe between 1933 and 1945. These works are a research priority, and their records are updated as new information becomes available. The inclusion of an object on this list does not indicate that it was looted or illegally transferred; rather, the Museum maintains this list in the hope that more information will come to light and welcomes further information from colleagues and the public. 

The Museum makes every effort to resolve claims for Nazi-looted art in an equitable, appropriate, and mutually agreeable manner. The Museum acquired Pinturicchio’s Saint Bartholomew (y1994-16) in 1994, for example, but later learned it had been sold under duress in 1941 by a Jewish Italian businessman living in Paris, Federico Gentili di Giuseppe. In 2001, the Museum reached an agreement with Gentili di Giuseppe’s heirs, compensating them and acknowledging Gentili di Giuseppe’s prior ownership in the painting’s credit line. Other works, like The Visitation by an artist in the circle of Wolf Huber (y1954-128), and River Landscape in Moonlight by Aert van der Neer (y1959-134) were looted during World War II and the Holocaust and subsequently restituted in the postwar period to their rightful owners before returning to the art market and entering the Museum’s collection.   

If you have provenance-related inquiries or information, please write to Princeton University Art Museum’s Curator of Provenance, marykate.cleary@princeton.edu.