Provenance research
Provenance research
The MdbK sees provenance research as a core task of museum work. Provenance research investigates the origin and history of artworks and cultural artefacts in their respective historical context. It creates the basis for documenting the museum's losses on the one hand and for verifying whether artworks are rightfully in the possession of the MdbK on the other. For as a result of armed conflicts, persecution and repression, extensive relocations of art and cultural artefacts have always taken place. If a suspicion of unlawful seizure is confirmed, solutions are sought together with the aggrieved parties or their successors in accordance with the relevant legal provisions. These can be restitution or other "just and fair solutions" in accordance with the Washington Principles for Nazi-confiscated cultural property adopted in 1998. Provenance research thus serves to maintain legal certainty regarding the ownership status of the MdbK's holdings and is the basis for the institution's trust-building and transparent actions.
Provenance research at MdbK
Provenance research has been conducted at the MdbK since the mid-1990s. From 2015 to 2020, the Magdeburg-based German Lost Art Foundation funded two consecutive projects. Since June 2022, the City of Leipzig itself has borne the costs for a research position for provenance research. The MdbK systematically and project-related analyses its holdings for cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution and for works of art that were expropriated during the Soviet occupation zone and the former GDR. It also takes a critical look at its own history and the origins of its collections. The MdbK conducts research into historical local and national collecting and the art market.
Projects
Current projects in the area of provenance research include the cooperation project Making Visible – Traces of Jewish Involvement in the MdbK, funded by the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony, in which research is being conducted into Jewish families who were patrons of the MdbK in collaboration with the publicist Sharon Adler and the artist Shlomit Lehavi. An exhibition on Jewish families who collected art in Leipzig is also being prepared and will open in 2026, the Year of Jewish Culture in Saxony. The MdbK's provenance researcher, Dr Ulrike Saß, is co-editor of "transfer - Zeitschrift für Provenienzforschung und Sammlungsgeschichte | Journal for Provenance Research and the History of Collection". transfer is an international academic publication that makes the results of provenance research and related research areas available digitally and open access in German and English to an academic audience and the interested public.You can find the online publication here.
Making Visible – Traces of Jewish Involvement in the MdbK
Jewish citizens of Leipzig had a decisive influence on the city and the MdbK with their civic and cultural commitment since the 19th century - until they were disenfranchised, persecuted, expelled, robbed and murdered under National Socialism. Knowledge of their work and their art collections is largely lost today.
The MdbK wants to bring the names and stories of Leipzig's pioneering Jewish protagonists back into the public consciousness and the museum.
Together with the artist Shlomit Lehavi and the publicist Sharon Adler, it has been searching for traces since 2024 to make forgotten and erased connections visible again.
Click here for the exhibition.
Kunstsammlungen jüdischer Familien in Leipzig in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts
Das Wissen zu privaten Kunstsammlungen jüdischer Familien in Leipzig ist noch immer eine Leerstelle, wenngleich für andere Gesellschafts- und Lebensbereiche (bspw. Verlagswesen, Pelzhandel, Musik, Messewesen, Rechtsgeschichte) bereits umfängliche Forschungen vorliegen. Das MdbK forscht zu den Biografien der jüdischen Familien und den Verbindungen zum Museum. Das vom Deutschen Zentrum Kulturgutverluste geförderte Forschungsprojekt Kunstsammlungen jüdischer Familien in Leipzig in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts ermöglicht dafür Grundlagenarbeit. Es läuft vom 15.01.2025 bis zum 15.07.2026.
Im Forschungsprojekt werden die Biografien von 22 Leipziger jüdischen Familien recherchiert, die Kunst sammelten, sowie deren Verfolgungsschicksal und ihre Sammlungen dokumentiert. Dabei werden auch die Familien berücksichtigt, die um die Jahrhundertwende konvertiert sind, denn diese wurden im Nationalsozialismus ebenfalls als jüdisch kategorisiert und verfolgt. Die Ergebnisse des Projektes fließen in die Ausstellung Vier Wände voller Kunst. Jüdische Familien und ihre Sammlungen in Leipzig ein, die ab dem 1. Oktober 2026 im MdbK zu sehen sein wird.
Events
The results of provenance research at the MdbK and an insight into its work can be obtained at regular events, including the Museum Night, the International Day of Provenance Research (every year on the second Wednesday in April) and on the dates of the guided tour series "Art in Context. On the Provenance of Works at the MdbK".
