“Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berri”—still missing?

The basic facts:

When the Nazis steal everything there is to steal from the dozen or so members of the French branch of the Rothschild family between the summer of 1940 and 1944, part of their haul includes rare—one of a kind—medieval manuscripts, including those manuscripts custom-made for French nobility like “Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berri.”

Labeled R 974 by the ERR, the manuscript is shipped out from the Jeu de Paume to the Reich. Nothing more can be said about where it went… until 1951.

R 974
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Lane Faison, the last director of the Munich Central Collecting Point (MCCP) in what was the US zone of Occupation of Germany, wrote to a Dr. Haars about this rarest of books, wondering if the Gothic manuscript in question had ended up at the MCCP or at the Rare Book repository of Berchtesgaden or still sihpped by Goering on the so-called “Overing Train.”  There is only one location in Germany known as Overing; it is in the eastern suburbs of Bremen in northwestern Germany.

An equally appealing tidbit comes to us from Faison about Gisela Limberger, Goering’s former private secretary and unofficial curator of the Goering Collection who herself misappropriate 11 crates of silver and china from the Jeu de Paume. According to Faison, Limberger contacted Rose Valland, France’s Resistance hero who selflessly sacrificed four years of her young life in Nazi-occupied Paris at the Jeu de Paume recording movements of stolen works in and out of the museum. Or was it Valland who contacted Limberger? No matter, Limberger let out that the manuscript might have ended up at Berchtesgaden which prompted Faison to ask Haars about its present whereabouts.

R 974
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Sadly, one can conclude that, unless the Rothschilds recovered the manuscript after 1951, it is still missing. This brief note is a wonderful example of how small strands of communication can provide numerous insights into the workings and dynamics of plunder and restitution.

However, the ERR card identifies the manuscript as both a "Tagebuch" and "Stundenbuch."  One question to raise is: if there are several versions of the manuscript, which is it since the most elaborate of the duc de Berry's manuscript lies at the Institut de France in Paris?

By the way, who was/is Dr. Haars? There is no indication of title, rank, organization with whom he was affiliated. One tantalizing clue: a Dietrich Haars and his wife acquired a book business in Winsen (south of Hamburg) in 1951.

R 974
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

De Al-Ándalus al Jeu de Paume: Una lección de procedencia, estilo valenciano

por Martin Terrazas

"La mejor cerámica del siglo XV", C. Velasco
Fuente: Las Provincias

Después de los primeros saqueos dramáticos de las colecciones judías más importantes en la región parisina durante el verano y otoño de 1940 por la infantería de la Embajada de Alemania en Paris (los Geheime Feld Polizei—literalmente, policía secreta campestre—o GFP), se apoderaron los Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) del saqueo manejado por los nazis de arte origen propietario judío en la Francia ocupada, tanto como en todos los territorios invadidos por las tropas alemanes. En París, historiadores de arte y expertos del ERR analizaron a miles de objetos decorativos cuyos pertenecen a individuales como Jean A. Seligmann y sus hermanos André y Arnold; Edouard, James-Armand, Alexandrine, Guy, Henri, y Philippe de Rothschild; los hermanos Bacri, Georges Wildenstein, y Paul Rosenberg. Entre estos objetos, cuales las entidades habían confiscados y transferidos primero al Louvre y de allí al Jeu de Paume, fueron objetos de arte decorativo inapreciables y, en particular, alfarería de Valencia (España).

Que parece como cerámica sencilla, de color azul y blanco, esconde una plétora de líneas de trama. Estos objetos de arte decorativo tiene una historia única, urdiendo cultura y tiempo juntos, quizás en muchas maneras, venir la SGM, sus dueños judíos y saqueadores fascistas no sabían.

Mientras muchos académicos trazan la artesanía a los abasidas de Sāmarrā’, abajo el reino de Jaume II de Aragón el Justo, la tradición fue llevado de Al-Ándalus, en particular las ciudades capitales de Córdoba y Granada y centros de fábrica de Triana y Úbeda, a las orillas de la Turia (Guadalaviar). Abajo sus católicos adoptados, esta cerámica elaborada a mano saltó a la fama mundial, ayudó el puerto de Valencia llegar ser una parada principal en el Mediterráneo, y creyó una industria cerámica española que a pesar de varios cambios gubernamentales, una guerra civil sangrienta, dictadura, subcontratación internacional, depresión económica, y indiferencia por las generaciones siguientes, todavía se mantiene en lugares cómo Manises, Paterna, Alcora, Muel, Villafeliche, Talavera de la Reina, Puente del Arzobispo, Barcelona y Reus.

Jacques Seligmann y Co.:

Large faience platter (Manises), 17th c.

Fuente: Proyecto ERR via Bundesarchiv

Faience jar with handles, 17^th c.

Fuente: Proyecto ERR via Bundesarchiv

From Al-Andalus to the Jeu de Paume: A Lesson in Provenance, Valencia Style

by Martin Terrazas

After initial dramatic seizures of major Jewish collections in the Paris region during the summer and fall of 1940 by the foot soldiers of the German Embassy in Paris (the Geheime Feld Polizei—literally, Secret Field Police—or GFP), the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) seized control of the Nazi-ordered plunder of Jewish-owned art in occupied France, as well as in all territories overrun by German troops. In Paris, the ERR art historians and experts came upon thousands of decorative objects owned by the likes of Jean A. Seligmann and his brothers André and Arnold; Edouard, James-Armand, Alexandrine, Guy, Henri, and Philippe de Rothschild; the Bacri brothers, Georges Wildenstein, and Paul Rosenberg. Among those objects which their units had confiscated and transferred first to the Louvre and from there to the Jeu de Paume, were priceless decorative art objects and in particular ceramics from Valencia, Spain.

What seems like simple, blue-and-white ceramics holds a plethora of plot lines. These decorative objects have a unique history, warping cultures and time together, perhaps in many ways that, come World War II, their Jewish owners and Fascist looters had not previously known.

While many scholars trace the craft back to the Abbasids in Sāmarrā’, under the reign of Jaume II of Aragon, the tradition was brought from Al-Andalus, in particular its capitals of Córdoba and Granada and manufacturing centers of Triana and Úbeda, to the banks of the Turia (Guadalaviar). Under its Catholic adoptees, this hand-crafted pottery gained worldwide fame, helped Valencia’s port become a principal Mediterranean shipping call, and created a Spanish ceramic industry that despite various governments, bloody civil war, dictatorship, outsourcing, economic depression, and indifference by younger generations, is still maintained today in places such as Manises, Paterna, L’Alcora, Muel, Villafeliche, Talavera de la Reina, Puente de Arzobispo, Barcelona and Reus.

From the Rothschild Collection, Paris, France:

Spanish-Moorish vase, 16th c.
Source:ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Spanish-Moorish Plate, ca. 1429
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Spanish-Moorish majolica plate, 16th c.
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Spanish-Moorish plate, early 17th c.
Source: ERR Project via Bundesarchiv

Krakow (May 2009), Prague (June 2009), and beyond (2009-2011): Anything new?

In mid-May 2009, a dozen individuals from the United States and Europe, mostly lawyers, one historian, and several representatives of the art market, met in a classroom in the former home of General Governor Hans Frank on the outskirts of Krakow, Poland. The purpose of the meeting was to come up with a statement that might offer an alternative to the impending, inevitable Holocaust Era Assets Conference of Prague, scheduled for June 26-30, 2009.

After a day and a half, compromise was in the air, rebellious spirits subsided, and in the interest of pragmatism, a declaration was hashed out to be presented in some form or another at the Prague Conference.

Six weeks later, delegates from more than 45 countries and representatives of international non-governmental organizations, cobbled together a lengthy declaration branded with the name of one of Nazi Germany’s most perverse concentration camp experiments, Terezin. The Terezin Declaration gave top priority to the salvage of the neediest of the neediest amongst the dwindling population of Jewish Holocaust survivors around the globe. Coming almost at the end was a statement about looted art which echoed in an even more diluted manner the Krakow Declaration of May 2009.

The international community pledged to meet its obligations towards survivors and put into place national and international mechanisms to settle property questions, including cultural assets. The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs established an European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI), of which the initial mission was and continues to be to monitor the implementation of the Terezin Declaration and make recommendations on how best to accomplish that mission, providing annual reports on developments in signatory nations with respect to restitution, reparations, compensation, and aid to needy survivors. The implementation of the Terezin Declaration involves five major areas of activity, including looted cultural assets and Judaica.

Let’s take a look at where we are with respect to our favorite issue—looted art. One way to assess the situation is by looking at the relevant statements of the Krakow Declaration and the Terezin Declaration and measure them against concrete accomplishments recorded since July 1, 2009.

Aid to research:

Krakow: Exclusive government control of research into provenance and title issues and the failure to permit, encourage and enable independent research is not acceptable. We therefore urge nations to provide adequate funds to facilitate independent research and to make such research available to the general public.

The Terezin Declaration is mum on this point. As of now, the only countries which are funding provenance research at any scale are Germany and Austria.

Claims resolution:

Krakow: Taking into consideration the Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, we urge all parties to ensure that claims to recover looted art are resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits of the claims, having taken into account legal, moral and other considerations, in order to achieve just and fair solutions.

Here, the Terezin Declaration is explicitly silent, but implicitly whispers something to the effect that mechanisms must be put into place for claimants. Nevertheless, despite the rare rulings coming from national restitution commissions (Holland, Germany, Austria), claimants are still forced to seek redress before the courts of their respective nations in expensive litigations. To date, no measures have been taken to alleviate the legal burden that befalls those who seek the return of their cultural property.

Cultural property and exports:

Krakow: Export control, cultural heritage and citizenship laws should not be applied to prevent the return of property to Holocaust victims. It is unjust for a country that took or came into possession of Holocaust looted property to keep it.

The Terezin Declaration ignores this point. All nations have invoked their cultural patrimony laws to prevent restituted property from leaving their territory under the pretext that those items belong to the cultural heritage of their nations. A tactic that has been used for decades now, during and after the Second World War. It is a perverse attack on the rights of individuals to be reunited with their cultural possessions and a clear abuse of power by nations seeking to prevent cultural items from being returned to their rightful owners.

Restitution laws:

Krakow: We urge nations to enact or modify laws and regulations to authorize the restitution of looted Holocaust cultural property to the rightful owners in appropriate cases.

Terezin: Where it has not already been done, we also recommend the establishment of mechanisms to assist claimants and others in their efforts,

As can be seen, the Terezin Declaration is a meek version of the Krakow declaration. However, let us not fool ourselves. Short of someone wielding a supranational equivalent of a nuclear detonator to convince nations to amend their laws so as to facilitate restitution procedures, there will be no amendments or new laws passed until the international community acts with one voice. It may very well be that an absence of political will at the national level might compel political solutions at supranational levels.

Legal impediments to restitution:

Krakow: Where statutes of limitations or prescription laws prevent the restitution of looted Holocaust property, they should be waived or exceptions for Holocaust looted property should be made in appropriate cases.

Terezin passed over this very delicate topic which constitutes the biggest legal impediment for anyone seeking a measure of justice in any asset category that was plundered during the Second World War. In some nations, stolen items can be converted after the passage of time into legitimately owned objects.

Inventories:

Krakow: We urge nations to conduct systematic surveys of works of art and other cultural objects in their collections, produce inventories of this property and make them available to the general public.

As expected, no one at the Prague Conference sought to press for the creation of inventories, a demand that has been largely unmet since the first calls for such inventories in the months that followed the collapse of the Third Reich. To date, inventories are fragmentary, incomplete, difficult to use and not updated.

Provenance research:

Krakow: We urge nations to conduct systematic provenance research and make the results available to the public.

Terezin: In particular, recognizing that restitution cannot be accomplished without knowledge of potentially looted art and cultural property, we stress the importance for all stakeholders to continue and support intensified systematic provenance research, with due regard to legislation, in both public and private archives, and where relevant to make the results of this research, including ongoing updates, available via the internet, with due regard to privacy rules and regulations.

Provenance research is one area where one can say that there has been progress, albeit limited. Efforts in most nations are not inspired by their governments, but rather by museum professionals, as in the United States, for instance. Fragmentary as they may be, those limited efforts when combined are proving the point—that concerted, coordinated international action must be carried out to facilitate complex research on individual objects, their owners, the dealers and institutions that carried them over time.

Conflict resolution in claims disputes:

Krakow: We urge nations to provide alternative dispute resolution mechanisms using qualified and independent experts.

Terezin: Keeping in mind the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, and considering the experience acquired since the Washington Conference, we urge all stakeholders to ensure that their legal systems or alternative processes, while taking into account the different legal traditions, facilitate just and fair solutions with regard to Naziconfiscated and looted art, and to make certain that claims to recover such art are resolved expeditiously and based on the facts and merits of the claims and all the relevant documents submitted by all parties. Governments should consider all relevant issues when applying various legal provisions that may impede the restitution of art and cultural property, in order to achieve just and fair solutions, as well as alternative dispute resolution, where appropriate under law.

Although there is an apparent overlap between the two declarations, lawyers and policymakers alike have warped the concept of a ‘just and fair solution”. Just and fair for whom? More likely than not, for the current possessor who is still viewed as an innocent party in the restitution process. Therefore, one needs to proceed with caution when promoting alternative dispute resolutions because fairness is in the eye of the beholder. By the way, there is nothing expeditious about the settlement of a cultural claim.

Access to archival records:

Krakow: Acknowledging that provenance research has priority over individual privacy protection, we urge nations to open all public records and archives pertaining to the looting of cultural property through various means including theft, coercion, abandonment, forced sales, and sales under duress; to make them accessible to researchers and the public, and to provide incentives for the accessibility of privately-owned archives.

The Terezin declaration might have implicitly supported access to archival records, both public and private. But, in order to achieve fair and just solutions, all relevant records must be made available and released so that all parties can equally benefit from the wisdom contained in those documents, be they letters, receipts, lists, telegrams, reports. Access to public records is going much faster than the facilitation of conflict resolution or provenance research. But private records remain locked behind closed doors, which is a detriment both to the art trade and to the general understanding of the history of ownership of cultural objects over time and space. Here too, political action and creative solutions might be needed to widen access to privately-held archives.

Monitoring:

Krakow: All nations should monitor restitution activity and make public annual reports on the making and resolution of claims and supply to the public accurate information about looted Holocaust property.

Although the Terezin Declaration omits this idea completely, it is contained in the generic recommendation for a post-Prague 2009 initiative—encapsulated by the creation of the European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI). However, there has yet to be any distinctive output from ESLI on this and related matters since its founding two years ago.

Documentation:

Krakow: We urge all nations to create facilities where information is available on restitution procedures in other countries.

ESLI is supposed to be one of the key facilities through which information can be found on the practice of restitution in countries that participated in Washington in 1998 and in Prague in 2009. Still, no word from ESLI. Everyone is anxiously waiting for product.

Where do we go from here?

That is an excellent question. So far, there are no good answers that translate into effective strategies.

It might very well be that, in order to move forward on all fronts, drastic measures and severe medication are needed to protect the rights of claimants, to ensure fair and equitable processes for deciding on the fate of claimed objects, and to raise the general level of awareness amongst specialists and laypersons alike as to the mechanisms of cultural plunder and its long-term impact on civil society.