Better late . . .

Germany's Culture Minister Bernd Neumann has invited leading museum representatives and legal experts to the Berlin Chancellery on Monday. A government spokesman said Neumann wanted to get an idea of the situation facing German museums for artwork unfairly bought or confiscated by the Nazis before and during World War Two.

Museum directors have said they are going into the meeting with no demands, but rather suggestions on the major problems at hand concerning restitution. A top item on their list is so-called "provenance" research, which traces the origins of a piece of art.

"We believe more funds need to be invested into this kind of research," said Mechtild Kronenberg, director of the German Museum Association -- a sentiment shared by the Jewish Claims Conference. It said that provenance research was a key factor to help come to terms with the consequences of the Nazi's art theft.

From Deutsche Welle. Interestingly, what has prompted this rather belated colloquium is the success of restitution claims, not all of which are as clear-cut as one might like:

Culture Minister Neumann issued his invitation for Monday following strong criticism of a recent restitution case in Berlin. The Berlin Senate returned the expressionist painting "Berlin Street Scene" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from 1913 to the granddaughter of Jewish art collector Alfred Hess. The work, in turn, was sold to cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder at an auction in New York last week for $38 million. . .

Although there was evidence that the painting was not a case of looted art, including written correspondence indicating it had been sold willingly, Berlin's Brücke museum had no official receipt for the work.

Posted by David on November 20, 2006 5:15 PM