Germany Thanks Russia for trophy art
ARTinvestment.RU   20 августа 2008

In many German cities are exhibitions on the 50 th anniversary of the return to East Germany, 1.5 million pieces, taken as a trophy at the end of the war

Fifty years ago the Soviet Union returned to East Germany, 1.5 million art treasures of the world, captured as a trophy at the end of World War II. Recently, 28 German museums have decided to once again say thank you for it and arranged the exhibition, featuring the work returned to Germany.

Of course, museums pushed to the organization of these exhibitions not only a sense of gratitude. The second part of their message is this: not whether we can get back to everything else? .. After all, Russia is still at least a million stolen works ...

German museums insist on the return of looted works of art since the merger of East and West Germany in 1990. But Russia is very reluctant to give priority to the work, saying that the fact that the Soviet Army captured «Rembrandt», «Caravaggio», «Rubens» should be considered as compensation for stolen or mutilated fascists masterpieces from Russian museums. Under Russian law, all works of art removed from Germany under the leadership of Stalin's trophy committee, are the property of the Russian state.

attention of Russian authorities and media are now riveted on the situation in South Ossetia, so few people are interested in exhibiting in the German museums. The recently opened the first exhibition of trophy art (all of their scheduled nine). It is called «Fifty-years lost and regained art» and held in Potsdam, in the famous palace of San Sushi, which was once the summer residence of Prussian King Frederick the Great.

The exhibition tells about the scale of restitution in 1958. Then, as a sign of friendship with East Germany from Moscow and Leningrad were sent to 300 cars, which were 1.5 million from 2.5 million looted masterpieces taken from Germany at the end of the war. If it were not for this restitution, many German museums ever would have without its main treasures. How can, for example, to imagine a museum without Pergamsky famous Pergamskogo altar? Or, souvenir shops in Dresden without the cards and mouse pads with the image of the painting heruvimchikov «Sistine Madonna» Rafael? But all this might remain in the Soviet Union ...

Perhaps, those who open these boxes with the trophy art, to feel like children at Christmas. Museum of East Germany with a large scale of the return of treasures. But the celebration soon ended, and nothing has helped conceal the impartial truth: almost half of the stolen works has not returned to Germany.

Director of the German museums still do not get an answer to the question, what criteria were guided by the Soviet authorities, when deciding which paintings and sculptures to return Germany, and what does not. At the opening ceremony in San Sousi President Prussian Cultural Center Partsinger Hermann (Hermann Parzinger) suggested that the remaining works are among those that were abducted individuals even before the arrival of trophy committee.

«We think that many works ended up in private collections», - said Partsinger. He said that Germany does not expect that, through exhibitions in Russia decides to immediately return the remaining trophies. The main task - to interact with representatives of Russian museums, curators to know which of the missing, where they are and in what condition.

Representatives of the fund «Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg», under the guardianship of which the San Sousi, declare that a ward of the palaces and castles of East Germany has disappeared without leaving a trace about 3 thousand works. Of the 159 paintings, which before the war hung in the richly furnished Gallery Frederick the Great, «from the war have returned» only 99. Curators formed close to the walls of empty seats captured by other works of art, many of whom were removed from the walls of castles that were destroyed during the war. Those works include paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (Peter Paul Rubens), Antonis van Dyck (Anthony van Dyck), Rembrandt (Rembrandt), Caravaggio (Caravaggio), Ferdinand Боля (Ferdinand Bol), Guido Reni (Guido Reni) and Jan Livensa (Jan Lievens), which almost completely cover the wall of the gallery.

At the exhibit, and illustration, which can be seen as looking gallery Fredrick before the war, as well as black and white photographs of the stolen works. It is impossible not to notice that the paintings that now hang on the walls of San Sushi is no longer taste predilections correspond to the Prussian monarch. Most «gaps», it was filled with canvases on religious themes, although Frederick preferred mythological paintings. He liked the pictures with images of naked bodies and sensual love scenes. In fact, who plundered his collection in 1945, apparently had a similar taste - from the walls of galleries disappeared lush Dan and Venus, as well as Renaissance erotic fantasies Giulio Romano (Giulio Romano). In particular, it was stolen painting, which depicts nude boy and girl, tseluyuschiesya on the bed in the care of an elderly woman (presumably, breastfeeding).

Most are mourning the loss of paintings «Tarkviny and Lucretia», unforgettable masterpiece by Rubens. Even before the arrival of a Soviet trophy officer cut out a picture from the frame and took home. Cloth lay in his attic until his death in 1999. Then, one of Moscow collector bought the painting for 3.5 million dollars and paid for the restoration work, then tried to sell it for 60 million German The German government did not want to pay for the picture of the same amount, and tried to return the masterpiece through the courts. But a Moscow court rejected the claim, saying that the fact that the owner bought the painting to its rightful way.

However, not all ends so sadly. In 1993, a WWII veteran passed the German Embassy in Moscow, 101 graphic works, including works of Albrecht Durer (Albrecht Duerer), Édouard Manet (Edouard Manet), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec) and Francisco de Goya (Francisco de Goya). Before the war, works of art were at the Museum of the Arts in Bremen, and in 1943 had been hidden in the castle of KRC. There they found the officers and the Soviet army. In 2000, drawings and prints returned to Bremen museum.

exhibition of trophy art at the Castle of San Sushi last until October 31. Similar exhibitions will be held in Aachen, Berlin, Bremen, Dessau, Dresden, Gotha and Schwerin.

Sources: bloomberg.com , artinvestment.ru



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