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Photographs of looted works of art. Part I, Nos 1-33: 33 photographs of works of...
Catalogue reference: T 209/31
What’s it about?
This record is about the Photographs of looted works of art. Part I, Nos 1-33: 33 photographs of works of... dating from 1945 - 1946 in the series British Committee on the Preservation and Restitution of Works of Art, Archives and.... It is held at The National Archives, Kew.
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Full description and record details
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Reference (The unique identifier to the record described, used to order and refer to it)
- T 209/31
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Date (When the record was created)
- 1945 - 1946
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Description (What the record is about)
- <p>Photographs of looted works of art. </p> <p>Part I, Nos 1-33: 33 photographs of works of art looted by the Germans, all presumed to be from Central and Northern Italian collections, including the nine paintings by Multscher and others removed from the city hall of Vipiteno, near Bolzano, and illegally sent as a gift to Goering by Mussolini [see T 209/30], and paintings originally belonging to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and removed from their repositories in the summer of 1944 [see T 209/30]. Some of the photographs, such as those for the Vitipeno paintings, include the painting's title, artist, provenance and negative number as registered in the catalogue of the Italian Regio Gabinetto Fotografico [Royal Photographic Cabinet]. The 33 works of art are mainly from the Renaissance, the Florentine, Venetian-Lombard or Germanic schools and depict religious or political subjects, portraits and still lives. </p> <p>Part II, Nos 34-60: 27 large format photographs of paintings, bronzes and jewellery looted by the Germans from the Naples national collections, in particular the National Museum and the Filangeri Museum. They include Pieter Brueghel the Elder's 'The blind leading the blind' ['The parable of the blind'], Titian's 'Danae' and 'Portrait of Lavinia', Palma Vecchio's 'Sacred conversation', Filippo Lippi's 'Annunciation' and Raphael's 'Madonna with child', bronzes from Herculaneum and the National Museum and jewellery from the National Museum [see also WO 204/2995, WO 220/598 and FO 1046/763]. </p> <p>Part III, Nos 61-92: 32 large format photographs of art treasures looted by the Germans from the jewellery collection of the National Museum in Naples. </p> <p>Part IV, Nos 93-153: 61 photographs of French and Italian works of art looted by the Germans from both public and private collections, with partial information on their identity and provenance. Includes photographs [Nos 94, 99, 106-112, 151-153] of the interiors of the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris, which during the war had been used as repository for works of art looted by the ERR from French private and public collections, showing various works of art on display. The photographs of the art objects are mostly of paintings and drawings, but also include tapestry [No 124], antique objects [no 126] and furniture [No 128]. Most of the paintings and drawings are still lives, portraits and landscapes and contain no reference to their provenance, title or artist - with a few exceptions, as in the case of one Manet [No 113], two St Aubins [Nos 114 and 127], one Rembrandt [No 118], one Degas [No 129] and one Fragonard [No 131]. Nos 97-98 show the interior of presumably the Jeu de Paume museum, filled with modern paintings, examples of modern art confiscated by the ERR some of which were later exchanged for Old Masters for the Goering and Linz collections [see T 209/25 and especially T 209/29]. Also includes additional reproductions of the photographs of looted jewellery from the National Museum in Naples [see above] and of the bronze Apollo from Pompeii [No 135], as well as further photographs of paintings, prints and art objects [including Charles V's suit of armour, No 141] looted from the Italian state collections - in particular those of Florence, Venice and Naples - with incomplete references to their provenance. </p>
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Held by (Who holds the record)
- The National Archives, Kew
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Legal status (A note as to whether the record being described is a Public Record or not)
- Public Record(s)
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Language (The language of the record)
- English
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Restrictions on use (Information on restrictions to the use or reproduction of the material)
- Open in 1972
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Closure status (Whether the record is ‘open’ (available to the public) or ‘closed’ (not available due to a legal exemption))
- Open Document, Open Description
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Subjects (Categories and themes found in our collection (our subject list is under development, and some records may have no subjects or fewer than expected))
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Record URL
- https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/id/C2388696/
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Series information
T 209
British Committee on the Preservation and Restitution of Works of Art, Archives and...
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Photographs of looted works of art. Part I, Nos 1-33: 33 photographs of works of...
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