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Research on the ownership history, or provenance, of works of art is an important part of museum work. This research sheds light on the historical, social, and economic context in which a work of art was created and collected, as well as on the history of taste. While provenance research has long been ongoing at the Metropolitan Museum, a special effort has been made in the past few years to investigate the World War II-era provenance of European paintings in our collection. This effort has focused on works that were acquired after 1932 and created before 1946; that changed owners during these years; and that were—or could have been—in continental Europe at that time.
A time of great turmoil and upheaval, the years immediately before and during the war saw many paintings and other works of art come onto the international market, in some cases as the result of the Nazi looting of private collections. Though large numbers of seized works were subsequently restituted to their original owners or their heirs, or returned to the country from which they had been confiscated, some continued to appear on the art market and to make their way into other collections, both public and private. The purpose of the Provenance Research Project is to determine whether any paintings that have entered the Musuem's collection since 1932 could have been seized or stolen by the Nazis and not subsequently restituted to their rightful owners.
Provenance Research
Complete provenance of a given work of art, particularly one pre-dating the nineteenth century and the advent of the modern art market, is often difficult if not impossible to establish. Records of sale, particularly for paintings or objects that have not changed hands for several generations, frequently do not survive. Moreover, many private collectors buy and sell works anonymously through third parties, such as dealers or auction houses, which may or may not disclose the owner's identity. Finally, many nineteenth- and twentieth-century dealers and auction houses are no longer in business. In those cases, records are at best incompletely preserved, if not lost, or destroyed. All these factors contribute to the gaps that commonly occur in a work of art's provenance. Such gaps do not signal that the work was looted or stolen, only that the complete ownership history cannot be reconstructed today.
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