Recent Digitized Dorotheum Art Sales between 1942 – 1943
The tracing of Nazi looted art should now be much easier with the onset of digital technology. Several institutions have collected together some of the data that has been made available over the last half century or so. Part of this data involves the digitisation of auction catalogues from places such as Austria both before and during the second world war.
This is how the Central Registry of Information on Looted Property 1933 – 1945 describes the project:
‘…As part of the international project “German Sales 1930-1945. Art Works, Art Markets, and Cultural Policy” auction catalogues from Germany, Switzerland and Austria published between 1930 and 1945 are being identified, which are an essential source of information on the German art market during the Third Reich and for provenance research. The project will enable museums worldwide to clarify doubtful provenances and families to identify the sales of their artworks, and will lead to a greater understanding of the dynamics of the art market during the Third Reich.
The three partners in the project are the Getty Research Institute, the Kunstbibliothek—Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,the Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg and the Forschungsstelle “Entartete Kunst” at the Universität Hamburg.
The Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg has already digitised a large number of catalogues, including some from the Netherlands and France, and some of these catalogues are annotated. For a list of auction houses whose catalogues are now available online, click here. To search by artist and work of art, click here.
The resulting integrated database of these auction records will eventually form part of the Getty Provenance Index®. For further information from the Getty, click here. For detailed information about the project, available on the portal arthistoricum,net, click here.
The following files were produced over a period of 15 months from photocopied source material. They are made available for research and they can be reproduced on other web sites without permission. The more data available on the internet without restriction should be encouraged.
Although one or two catalogues may be available elsewhere, I have added the four pdf files of art auctions from the Austrian auction house Dorotheum, which were commanded by the Third Reich to sell looted art over an extended period between 1933 and 1945.
Catalogues available (one with plates of some lots)
February 10th -12th 1942 click here to read
February 24th – 27th 1942 click here to read (be patient, this is a large file with photographs)
March 10th – 12th 1942 click here to read
February 16th – 19th 1943 click here to read
