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Portrait of a Young Girl
Portrait of a Young Girl Holding a Flower not product of a forced sale
The case
On the 1st of March 2006 the Spoliation Advisory Panel ruled that ‘Portrait of a Young Girl holding a flower', a painting in the possession of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and attributed to Nikolaus Alexander Mair von Landshut was not the product of a sale forced by the Nazi regime. The Ashmolean Museum received the painting in 1967 from the estate of Mr William Spooner and was informed that the painting had belonged to Jakob Goldschmidt, a Jewish art collector and banker.
The Spoliation Advisory Panel ruled that Portrait of a Young Girl Holding a Flower had been sold for a fair value at auction in Frankfurt in 1936 to pay off the debts Jakob Goldschmidt had incurred when the Danatbank collapsed.
The full report about this case is available on line
Procedures followed
In 2000 the Ashmolean Museum had carried out provenance research in the Department of Western Art and published a list of items with provenance gaps on the website of the National Museum Directors Conference (now held on this site).In this Report the Ashmolean had identified the possibility of a problematic provenance regarding the Portrait of a young girl. When alerted to the spoliation claim in August 2000, the Ashmolean investigated the matter with due propriety leading to the Spoliation Advisory Panel's ruling.
Quote
'Few claims are typical. A claim which is serious and apparently well-founded may have complicating ramifications which may only come to light with time-consuming research.' (Jon Whiteley, Curator Western Art))
Lessons learnt
- Reach agreement with the claimant as soon as possible to submit the claim to the Spoliation Advisory Panel;
- Inform the Cultural Property Unit at the DCMS of the existence of the claim;
- Contact others facing similar claims for the purpose of sharing information;
- Maintain transparency throughout.
Jon Whiteley, Curator Western Art
T +44-(0)1865-278042
F +44-(0)1865-278056
E jon.whiteley@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
