Provenance research

On December 4, 1998 the Bundesgesetz über die Rückgabe von Kunstgegenständen (Kunstrückgabegesetz / Austrian Law on the Return of Artefacts) was passed; its aim is to return artworks now housed in Austrian Federal Museums and Collections that entered these federal collections during or because of the Nazi tyranny to their original owners or their legal heirs.

For this purpose the Kommission für Provenienzforschung (Commission for Provenance Research) was established in 1998; its research associates check all the inventories, archivalia and objects in every federal museum for information on a work’s provenance. In 2009 an amendment to the law was passed. Today, the Commission for Provenance Research answers to Andrea Mayer, Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport.

Provenance Research in the Kunsthistorisches Museum

Even before the Kunstrückgabegesetz was passed in December 1998, Dr Herbert Haupt, a historian and at the time the Director of the Museum Archive, researched the provenance of all artefacts that had entered the museum holdings during or immediately after the Nazi era. In June 1998 Haupt, assisted by Dr Lydia Gröbl, published a comprehensive and detailed account of the facts entitled “Die Veränderungen im Inventarbestand des Kunsthistorischen Museums während der Nazizeit und in den Jahren bis zum Staatsvertrag 1955“(Changes in the Holdings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum during the NS Era and the Years before the Signing of the Austrian State Treaty in 1955).

His report focused on extant sources in the archives from the period 1938 – 1955, and, together with some later research, it forms an important basis for all subsequent provenance research. Until his retirement at the end of 2008 Haupt remained both Director of the Museum Archive and the provenance research officer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

A number of suspect paintings in the Picture Gallery listed in the art data base compiled by the Nationalfonds (National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism) were researched by Dr Sabine Pénot, curator of the Picture Gallery. Additional research was carried out by Mag. Ulrike Nimeth from the Commission. In 2009 Dr Franz Pichorner, Deputy Director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Director of its Archive, was installed as the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s provenance research officer. In April 2009 the Commission selected Dr Susanne Hehenberger and Dr Monika Löscher, who are systematically checking all acquisitions by the Kunsthistorisches Museum since 1933.

The results of their work are summarized in dossiers that form the basis for the recommendations made by the Kunstrückgabebeirat (Art Restitution Advisory Board) to the relevant ministry. The decisions of the advisory council must be unanimous; it either endorses or rejects a restitution within the meaning of the law. The council‘s reasoning is subsequently published on the commission’s website. If the council endorses a restitution the law empowers the minister in charge to return objects illegally removed from their rightful owners to them or their legal heirs.