transfer – Zeitschrift für Provenienzforschung und Sammlungsgeschichte | Journal for Provenance Research and the History of Collection
transfer – Zeitschrift für Provenienzforschung und Sammlungsgeschichte | Journal for Provenance Research and the History of Collection ist ein wissenschaftliches Publikationsorgan für Beiträge zur Provenienzforschung und Sammlungsgeschichte sowie zu benachbarten Forschungsbereichen wie der Kunstmarktforschung, Rezeptionsgeschichte, Kultursoziologie oder Rechtsgeschichte. Die Veröffentlichung der Beiträge erfolgt rein digital im Diamond Open Access. Die Qualität von vollumfänglichen Aufsätzen und Forschungsberichten in deutscher und englischer Sprache wird durch ein Double-Blind Peer-Review Verfahren gesichert. Sonstige Formate erfahren eine interne Begutachtung durch die Herausgeber:innen unterstützt durch den wissenschaftlichen Beirat. Sämtliche Beiträge erhalten ein professionelles Lektorat. Die Zeitschrift ist institutionell an der Forschungsstelle Provenienzforschung, Kunst- und Kulturgutschutzrecht der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn sowie am Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig angebunden und wird durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft finanziell gefördert. Seit April 2026 ist transfer im Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) gelistet. Herausgegeben von: Dr. Felicity Bodenstein, Dr. Ulrike Saß & Prof. Dr. Christoph Zuschlag Managing Editor: Dr. Florian Schönfuß Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Arbeitskreis Provenienzforschung e.V., dbv-Kommission Provenienzforschung und Provenienzerschließung, Prof.'in Dr. Larissa Förster, Prof. Dr. Didier Houénoudé, Prof. Dr. Gilbert Lupfer, Prof.'in Dr. Dr. Antoinette Maget Dominicé, Prof.'in Dr. Barbara Kristina Murovec, Dr. Gesa Vietzen
Jacques Schuhmacher: Nazi-Era Provenance of Museum Collections. A Research Guide
Copyright (c) 2025 Fenya Almstadt, Alice Cazzola https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Over the last decades, museums in large cities and in places known for their colonial entanglements such as Berlin, Bremen, Cologne and Hamburg have often been the focus of studies to determine what non-European objects are in their collections. Smaller museums and museums in places far from these larger centers remain on the margins of research. This is partly because small museums often have limited budgets and not the personnel to undertake the time-consuming task of examining records and checking deposits for non-European objects. With our project Mapping the Object we wished to gain an overview of the number and diversity of non-European objects in Westphalian-Lippe museums. The project contributed to the important task of creating an overview of objects with colonial contexts in small museums by (1) examining and reviewing the collections both through the creation and cleaning of databases and through the physical viewing of objects in a number of collections (2) supporting museums in making their collections broadly accessible through the museum:digital online database and (3) presenting our results as part of an educational program. Through our research we were able to identify some 1.700 non-European objects in 44 museums in Westphalia-Lippe. Of these objects, under 10% are likely to have a connection to the German colonies. This result suggests that colonial objects were also collected in small museums, although not systematically. In this article we explain the context of the study, our working steps and what requirements are needed for this project to be expanded. Our study provides a first quantitative overview of the number of non-European objects in small museums and underscores the further need for qualitative analysis to be undertaken to determine more exact origins of these objects.
Copyright (c) 2025 Felicity Jensz, Ute Christina Koch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Sichtbar machen, was war – und was bleibt
The engagement with objects from the Palau Islands in the Ethnological Collection of the University of Tübingen exemplifies how colonial holdings can be recontextualized, researched, and made digitally accessible in the 21st century. This article focuses on the role of artist and researcher Elisabeth Krämer-Bannow during the Hamburg South Seas “Expedition” (1908-1910), the colonial acquisition contexts of the objects, and their current classification as ‘difficult heritage’ in the museum. An interdisciplinary student research project reconstructed object biographies and critically reflected on the possibilities and limitations of equitable cooperation with partners in Palau. The resulting digital exhibition Colonial Shadows links colonial collection histories with questions of global accessibility and digital participation. The article makes a case for open, critical, and cooperative approaches to decolonising university collections.
Copyright (c) 2025 Michael La Corte , Annika Vosseler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Based on provenance research at the Musée des Beaux-Arts and the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Strasbourg and supported by the French Minister of Culture, this article looks at the different contexts in which artworks were acquired between 1940 and 1945. Whereas Tessa Rosebrock’s research in 2004 focused on the acquisitions made by the Generaldirektion der Oberrheinischen Museen between 1940 and 1944, this new research complements Rosebrock’s findings and uncovers two major sources of enrichment for the collections during this period. On the one hand, alongside official acquisitions made by the Generaldirektion, the museums were entrusted with the management of artworks from the sequestration of the property of “enemies of the people and the Reich”. Despite some restitutions being conducted immediately after the war, several artworks with an encumbered provenance remained in the collections. Moreover, in the post-war imbroglios, artworks from the Neue Reichskanzlei in Berlin, found in a castle in Germany in 1945 by a French Army Captain, were deposited in Strasbourg. Their provenance had been forgotten until today. This article focuses on these two contexts and explains the research methodology employed. Methodologically, this discovery is the result of an interest in works whose provenance remained unknown and which were inventoried retroactively during the mid-2000s. By comparing the inventories with registers in French and German archives, it has been possible to determine the provenance of these artworks. In addition, the article demonstrates the importance of considering the paintings in their materiality as a historical source.
Copyright (c) 2025 Constance Jame https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
With the occupation of Poland by German troops in the fall of 1939, Nazi German authorities began to seize Polish cultural assets on a large scale, with academic institutions participating in this process. In this context, the article at hand focuses on the confiscation of Polish forestry science collections in 1939/40. The focus lies on the holdings of the Warsaw Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego (SGGW), the General Directorate of State Forests, and the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Poznań. With the cooperation of German forestry colleges – in particular those in Tharandt and Eberswalde – these holdings were systematically cataloged and transferred to Germany. Based on previously little-known files from the Tharandt University of Forestry, the case study reconstructs the sequence of events, the actors, and the ideological background of these measures. Particular emphasis is placed on the roles of Professor Kurt Mantel and his colleague Heinz Hoinkes, who were involved in the cataloging and relocation of Polish holdings in Warsaw on behalf of the German authorities. At the same time, contemporary Polish reports documenting the extent of looting and destruction are consulted. After the end of WWII, a systematic return of the stolen objects began in Tharandt, which was largely completed by the early 1950s. Nevertheless, provenance research has revealed that the holdings of the SLUB Dresden still contain volumes that arrived from Poland in 1940. Both concretely and symbolically, these volumes stand for the long-suppressed history of the systematic takeover of scientific and technical equipment. In the spirit of Walter Benjamin, this text is intended as a memorial that reveals the hidden traces of history and gives voice to the forgotten.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gabriela Brudzyńska-Němec https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
On 27 January 2025, French customs seized nine fossilized teeth from Morocco in transit to Italy. This case study discusses the legal framework for the seizure and evaluates it in light of European Council Regulation 2019/880 and French domestic law. Moreover, it problematizes the determination of the fossils’ origin and the blurred distinction between paleontology and archaeology and examines their implications for the regulation of the illicit fossil trade. Despite their structural similarities with undocumented antiquities, fossils are not covered by the licensing scheme under Article 4. Regulation 2019/880 still allows EU Member States to enforce Morocco’s export restrictions but seizures such as this one might require fossil market actors to change established practices.
Copyright (c) 2025 Paul P. Stewens https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The authenticity of the objects provided by the Iranian art dealer Saeed Motamed to Weltmuseum Vienna and other European museums will be analyzed in this paper. Upon initial analysis it is suspected that the objects mentioned are either not original and/or have been tampered with. Some of these ceramic objects appear twice in different dimensions, while some others seem to have been inspired by the latest excavations from Iran. Some objects with similar dimensions, depictions and supposed date of origin seem to appear in many museums over and over again. This paper will examine these cases and will try to find answers as to whether these objects were authentic, misdated or reworked to appear older and/or more interesting.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lara Deniz Ersoy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Auflösung und Verbleib von Schulbibliotheken in der DDR
The article focusses on the GDR administration’s proceedings regarding the dissolution of historical libraries, using the specific example of a school library. The displacement of the old societal elites was followed by the removal of relics of the past they had been connected with. Only after a certain delay, the GDR authorities and public corporations realized that they could make capital out of these unloved and seemingly useless remainders. Starting in 1959, the GDR’s central antiquarian bookstore was tasked with the commercial exploitation of the books, which explicitly included their sale to the so-called ‘non-Socialist economic area’. By this means, many books also went into West German libraries. GDR provenances as a research topic therefore not only relate to East Germany but to the Federal Republic of Germany as a whole. In many places and institutions in East Germany, the fate of their former libraries today is hardly known. The loss of historical and regional identity is clearly noticeable. Besides shedding light onto historical developments, the article suggests a renewed discussion of the dissolution of historical libraries and an assessment from today’s perspective. In those cases where the institutions responsible for the libraries themselves requested the latter’s dissolution, in part even actively participating in their destruction, one can hardly speak of sequestration or a context of deprivation. Even provenance researchers largely consider these as purely administrative acts, and thus as not being litigable. From a mere legal perspective this is applicable. However, the associated immense material and ideational losses deserve a different categorization and evaluation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Annett Büttner https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Returning to Samoa – The Appropriation and Restitution of a Samoan Prow
In 1932, the Übersee-Museum Bremen received a collection of cultural artefacts as a gift from Admiral Wilhelm Souchon (1864-1946). Among these artefacts was a prow dating back to the time of the Samoan Civil War of 1888 and the conflict between the imperial powers of the USA, Great Britain and the German Empire for supremacy over Samoa. Souchon acquired the prow as a naval officer on the SMS Adler in 1888. The article follows the traces of this prow. It outlines its journey from Samoa to Germany and its restitution in 2024, drawing on historical sources that shed light on both the German and Samoan perspectives on the events.
Copyright (c) 2025 Brian Alofaituli, Dionne Fonoti, Bettina von Briskorn https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The article examines the provenance history of two ancient objects: a Roman head in the Getty Museum (Inv.-No. 79.AA.135) and a counterweight in the Musée du Louvre (Inv.-No. E 25286). Both objects are linked to the collection of the French physician and antiquities collector Daniel Marie Fouquet (1850-1914). This research highlights the importance of a critical re-evaluation of existing documentation, particularly in relation to previous attributions and exclusions from the Fouquet collection. It also addresses a significant misunderstanding surrounding the 1922 auction of the collection, showing that several individuals involved have been misidentified in earlier research. These inaccuracies have contributed to confusion in reconstructing the collection’s history and dispersion. More broadly, the case demonstrates ongoing challenges in researching Fouquet’s collection and his historical network and provides a foundation for future research on Fouquet’s role as a collector and the relevance of provenance research today.
Copyright (c) 2025 Cecilia Benavente Vicente https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
On February 11, 1988, the art dealer Ludwig Bretschneider passed away. The Weltkunst dedicated an obituary to him, which emphasized on his success in trading non-European art and his commitment to the Munich art and antiques fair but asked no critical questions about his life or from which networks he benefited. In 1932, Bretschneider smuggled the eucharistic dove and other art treasures from Salzburg Cathedral across the border to Germany and sold them illegally. His conviction led to headlines in the press. During the National Socialist era, Bretschneider worked with the art dealer Maria Dietrich (1892-1971), who sold art to the “Sonderauftrag Linz”. Bretschneider acquired paintings and antiques from Jewish owners. In his dealings with representatives of the Nazi regime such as Martin Bormann (1900-1945), he achieved sales figures that far exceeded his previous business volume. Despite his closeness to the Nazi regime, Bretschneider portrayed himself as an opponent of the regime in his denazification hearings. After the war, Bretschneider made a name for himself as a dealer in “exotic art”. In his dealings with ethnological museums, Bretschneider profited from the colonial power imbalance of the imperial era. He offered his goods to museums in exchange for items that had entered the museum collections because of colonial injustice. In individual cases, the authenticity of his goods was called into question. This article examines for the first time the life of Ludwig Bretschneider, who was characterized as a Nazi sympathizer by an auction house in 2023.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nils Fiebig https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The 1882 British military occupation of Egypt accelerated an antiquities rush in the Nile Valley, driven by the collecting desires of individuals, states and museums in the Global North. In the United Kingdom, much of this supply came through licensed excavations operating under the division of finds/partage system, which allowed archaeologists to export a share of their finds. Excavator-suppliers also purchased freely on the antiquities market to supplement their excavated finds. Work in the source country was funded by destination country donors, either through archaeological funds such as the Egypt Exploration Fund, via excavation committees, or by direct patronage. These relationships created a business cycle that required exported antiquities to be distributed to financial backers to secure ongoing support. Drawing on archival records, this article examines select transactions to consider the role of excavator-suppliers in British-led archaeology and their proximity to modern definitions of ‘dealing’. It identifies three socio-functional myths used by excavator-suppliers to justify their actions, expenditures, and transactions in relation to the financial value of archaeological objects and labor.
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniel Potter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tracing the Provenance of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Peter Paul Rubens at the Galleria Borghese
A series of previously overlooked, interrelated documents discovered in the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano, along with manuscripts in the Archivio Storico dell’Accademia di San Luca and the Istituto Nazionale di Archeologia e Storia dell’Arte in Palazzo Venezia, have now made clear the provenance of the Lamentation over the Dead Christ, which is housed at the Galleria Borghese and currently attributed to Peter Paul Rubens (Inv.-No. 411). While critics have long questioned the painting’s origins and the circumstances of its entry into the Borghese collection, a full-text analysis of these sources traces its more likely provenance from the Palazzo Altieri al Gesù in Rome through successive sales from Giovanni Gherardo De Rossi to Pietro Camuccini, and then to Prince Camillo II Borghese on 1 April 1826. This proposal of a reconstructed provenance path demonstrates how provenance data can provide a verifiable methodological foundation of the historical and critical interpretation of artworks. In this study, the findings offer a basis for evaluating the context of the painting’s patronage, which is possibly linked to the Altieri family history, and provide further material for discussion in the longstanding debate on its attribution.
Copyright (c) 2025 Flavia De Nicola https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In 1945, the libraries of Publication Office Vienna and other institutions within Reich Security Main Office of the SS (RSHA) that were conducting research on Eastern Europe were confiscated and stored at the former Benedictine Abbey of St. Lambrecht, Styria. These libraries are said to be lost since their transport to London in 1946. In this paper, a list comprising 2.833 volumes from St. Lambrecht is analyzed. It is shown that these media most probably belonged to the library of Publication Office Vienna and that most of the looted media among them were seized by Special Command Künsberg in the Soviet Union. Finally, the approximate number of looted media in the list will be calculated.
Copyright (c) 2025 Daniela Mathuber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The Lost Art Collection of Gaston Lévy (1893-1977)
The art collection of Gaston Lévy (1893-1977) was of international significance and contained many works by renowned artists, with a focus on Paul Signac. Although works were sold or transferred throughout the 1930s, Lévy deposited a sizeable collection in 1940 at his Château des Bouffards in Sologne. This was an unsuccessful attempt to protect his collection from looting by the German occupiers. Lévy returned after the war to find his cultural goods had been taken. Yet, it was not until 1962 that Lévy initiated a compensation claim, and then only through the German system rather than the French process. This study explores the lost art collection of Lévy and traces works listed on his inventory of looted goods to modern collections, taking note of the recent restitutions to Lévy’s heirs. However, it also establishes that the list of works Lévy claimed to have been looted in June 1940 contains paintings which he did not own at that time or which did not exist. For this reason, it is contended here that the inventory must be treated with caution. Throughout, Lévy’s varied career, his business practices, and involvement in a series of criminal enterprises are used to contextualize the inadequacies and falsities of the sworn inventory that Lévy submitted to the West German authorities in 1962. For the first time, an exploration of Lévy’s life and compensation claim are carried out in tandem and the romantic narratives of Lévy’s life, woven by auction houses in recent years, are subjected to proper investigation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Harry Spillane, Peter Elliott https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Die deutsche Kunstpolitik in den besetzten Niederlanden und die Städtische Galerie Stuttgart 1942
This year, Städtische Galerie Stuttgart, today Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, celebrates its centennial anniversary. In its collection there are still art works with an unknown history, which therefore will be investigated in more detail as part of the museum history. A particular example for this is the Still Life by the Dutch painter Digna Roovers-Verploegh (1885-1965), which was acquired during the time of National Socialism and the history of which had been unknown until recently. On the one hand, the painting is only one of many still lifes which were collected in the course of the museum’s history. This also includes the time of National Socialism. On the other hand, the painting constitutes a testimony and remnant of the art, cultural and exhibition policy conducted by the “Reichskommissar” for the German-occupied Netherlands, which to this day is little known in Germany. The painting had been sent to Stuttgart in the context of Nazi art propaganda. In October 1942, it was employed by the Nazis together with other exhibits of the special exhibition Niederländische Kunst der Gegenwart (Dutch Contemporary Art) at the Stuttgart museum “Ehrenmal der Deutschen Leistung im Ausland” (Memorial of German Achievement Abroad) to represent a Dutch art which allegedly was unaffected by modern or other tendencies dissenting from Nazi art doctrine and seemingly rooting in an unbroken Dutch tradition. The article retraces a specific aspect of the cultural relations between the German-occupied Netherlands and Nazi Germany. Using the examples of the exhibition Niederländische Kunst der Gegenwart and the painting Still Life by Roovers-Verploegh, it tries to answer the question why Stuttgart was chosen to become the venue of a ‘Dutch’ exhibition organized by the “Reichskommissar” for the German-occupied Netherlands.
Reichskommissar für die besetzten Niederlande
Ehrenmal der Deutschen Leistung im Ausland
Copyright (c) 2025 Kai Artinger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Interview mit Miriam Olivia Merz, Provenienzforscherin bei der Zentralen Stelle für Provenienzforschung Hessen
Copyright (c) 2025 Florian Schönfuß, Miriam Olivia Merz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Interview with Frédérique Dreifuss-Netter, President of the Commission pour la restitution des biens et l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisémites in France
Copyright (c) 2025 Florian Schönfuß, Frédérique Dreifuss-Netter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Florian Schönfuß, Felicity Bodenstein, Ulrike Saß, Christoph Zuschlag https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Die Redaktion https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Heike Schroll: Verwaltung rettet Kunst. Die Verlagerung von städtischem und privatem Kunstbesitz aus der Stadt Berlin während des Zweiten Weltkriegs und die Bemühungen um Bergung und Rückführung in den ersten Jahren nach Kriegsende
Copyright (c) 2025 Brigitte Reineke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Der Kunsthändler Norbert Fischmann (1879-1956)
Copyright (c) 2025 Jasmin Kienberger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The restitution of material objects has become central for engaging with past injustices in post-conflict situations. Thereby, restitution is increasingly attributed a transformative potential to enable dialogues between different victim and perpetrator groups in the aftermath of mass violence. In both, National Socialist and colonial contexts, most objects that are returned are considered ‘valuable’ or ‘meaningful’ in dominant financial, artistic or cultural terms. Historically, these ‘valuable’ objects have left more archival traces leading to memorialization and restitution requests. Conversely, objects of alternative value, belonging to marginalized groups or appreciated in different value regimes (for instance economic objects, everyday objects, mineralogical samples) have left less extensive archival records, are less vividly remembered and are often overlooked for restitution. This focus on objects of a dominant value poses a fundamental challenge to restitution: how do the objects that are returned shape our social understandings of victim groups? How can marginalized groups become part of the dialogues that restitution envisions? We devote attention to these questions from a ‘social provenance research’ perspective to contemplate challenges of exclusion and different value systems for restitution processes and researchers. We explore a more socially differentiated understanding of restitution as a justice mechanism that not only shapes present perceptions of historical injustices but is itself also influenced by processes of selection and exclusion.
Copyright (c) 2025 Leah Niederhausen; Klaas Stutje https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Copyright (c) 2025 Florina Weber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Zwischen europäischer Avantgarde und Leipziger Grußkarte
In June 1964, the Oldenburg State Museum of Art and Cultural History acquired the multifaceted graphic collection of the Leipzig couple Gertrud and Friedrich Lieber, which comprised around 1.200 prints, drawings and autographs of varying quality and importance. In addition to various small prints, German prints from the 18th and 19th centuries and graphic works from Leipzig and other parts of Saxony, the collection included works by renowned representatives of classical modernism such as Lovis Corinth, Lyonel Feininger, Käthe Kollwitz, Max Liebermann and Edvard Munch. Despite the considerable size of the collection and the quality of many of the works, little was known about the genesis of the collection and the biography of the collector couple: Friedrich Lieber, a senior teacher, taught art education, published art history literature for young people and conducted his own art historical research; Gertrud Lieber worked for the “Deutsche Bildkunst-Hilfe” in Leipzig. After the death of her husband in 1963, Gertrud Lieber moved from Leipzig to Oldenburg with her collection, where the couple’s son Wolfgang lived as an actor. The Lieber graphic collection has been the subject of provenance research at the Landesmuseum Oldenburg for several years. The aim is to investigate the provenance of each individual graphic work and the question of whether all the prints and drawings acquired by the Liebers from 1933 onwards entered the collection legitimately or whether any Nazi-looted art can be traced. Despite a number of suspected cases, no graphic work from the Lieber collection has yet been identified as Nazi-looted art.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marcus Kenzler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Ja. Vielleicht? Nein! – zur Provenienz von drei Entwürfen Oskar Kokoschkas für das Breslauer Krematorium
Provenance research means working with primary sources. But what if those sources are contradictory or even contain false information? This is how an artwork quickly becomes a suspected case – an artwork that cannot be lent because its provenance seems questionable. Using the example of the three large draft drawings by Oskar Kokoschka for the Breslau crematory planned in 1914, which are today located at the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden, the article retraces the aforementioned way towards forming a suspected case and back again. Even without any written evidence for purchase, donation, or relinquishment, which is still lacking, these artworks could be proven to have been part of Staatliche Sammlungen für Kunst und Wissenschaft holdings since at least 1927. The fact that these objects left the museum again nearly 20 years later, albeit by different means than part of the relevant literature indicates, and not until another 35 years later have been inventoried at their current location, also forms part of their exciting object biography.
Staatliche Sammlungen für Kunst und Wissenschaft Dresden
Copyright (c) 2025 Katja Lindenau https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Within the scope of provenance research at the museum of the university of Tübingen (MUT) there has recently been an important chance find of historical labels in the Ethnological Collection (Ethnologische Sammlung). This find has inspired a thorough examination of the collection and its former interrelations, especially around Augustin Krämer, but also regarding further protagonists. The labels, which once had been attached to the objects, offer valuable insights into the objects’ provenance. The transcription of these labels proved to be challenging for all collaborators involved, as there were illegible handwritings, damaged labels as well as outdated terms. Matching the transcribed labels against the corresponding data in the university museum’s database served to review data consistency and accuracy. In this way, inconsistencies could be identified and corrected to ensure the completeness of the relevant data files. Findings emanating from this process show that the historical labels provide important information on the objects and their provenance. The transcription of the labels supports ongoing provenance research and helps reconstructing the collection’s history. Despite said challenges, historical labels can serve as a basis for future research. The article at hand provides an insight into the assessment of this find and likewise into corresponding approaches and modes of operation, including techniques of transcription and data adjustment with the museum’s database TMS.
Copyright (c) 2025 Johanna Annau; Katja Schurr; Sümeyye Tarhan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Exploring Ethics and Interdisciplinarity in Provenance Research of Museums’ Ancestral Remains
This article presents recent provenance research on the Indigenous ancestral human remains gathered by Alphonse Louis Pinart (1852-1911) during his journey in Oceania on board the French navy cruiser Le Seignelay. The collections he brought back from this trip, including both ancestral remains and artefacts, are currently scattered between different museums in Paris and Boulogne-sur-Mer (France). Based on the documentation available, it appears that the context of acquisition of the remains is vague and highly questionable in terms of ethics. Working on the provenance research of the ancestral remains, brought back by Pinart, does not come as an obvious task considering the numerous calls for repatriation, the decolonization of museums and the development of new ethical standards when dealing with human remains. Moreover, the recent introduction of a new set of legislation in the French cultural sector increases the complexity of the issue. In this article, we aim to explore the ethical and decolonial questions raised by working with the ancestral remains ‘collected’ by Pinart and to offer some points of consideration with regards to interdisciplinarity and the cultural and historical specificities of Oceania. We argue for the contribution of scientific data in provenance research, showing that physico-chemical and anthropological analysis, if consented to, are not necessarily antagonistic to ethical considerations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marie Hoffmann; Wanda Zinger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Cross-Border Appropriations and Colonial Cooperation
On 28th October 1896, the Lower Saxony State Museum Hanover received an ethnographic collection consisting of 164 objects from the shores of lake Malawi as a gift by Captain Theodor Berndt. Half of the collection is attributed to German East Africa, todays Tanzania, the other half to British Central Africa, todays Malawi. Theodor Berndt was captain of the Hermann von Wissmann, a German gunboat on nowadays Lake Malawi, then Lake Nyasa, and deputy commander of the German colonial station Langenburg. Little was known about the objects’ provenance and many questions arose, among them why and how a German colonial officer could appropriate half of his collection from a foreign colony. Research following up on this trans-imperial background revealed intense cross-border interactions between the German and British colonial administrations and a high degree of cooperation against the local African population around the lake, involving logistic and personnel support of colonial wars and military strikes to please the European counterpart. While it cannot be proven that the collection originates from these interactions, the historical context enables approaching the collection’s provenance towards a tendency that many of the objects may have been brought into Berndt’s possession by violent means.
Copyright (c) 2025 Maik Tusch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
In recent years, Central American countries have more actively developed efforts for the repatriation of archaeological material. In this context, more attention to provenance research on archaeological material from the region is warranted. In this article we examine the acquisition history of the Southern Central American archaeological material currently housed in the Wereldmuseum Leiden and Wereldmuseum Amsterdam. By looking at who supplied material to the museums, where these individuals were based, and how their engagement with these objects was shaped by professional and personal characteristics, we aim to come to a better understanding of the structural and incidental factors that contributed to the formation of these collections. By examining the acquisition history of the 742 objects categorized as archaeological material from the region in these museums, as well as the biographies of the 45 individuals and institutions involved in supplying this material, we conclude that the collecting of Southern Central American archaeological material in the Wereldmuseum Leiden and the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam should be considered in light of mostly US-driven corporate and geopolitical interests in the region. At the same time, we highlight the importance of ‘collection idiosyncrasies’, based on personal relationships and interests, in shaping the collections we have today.
Copyright (c) 2025 Georg A. Müller; Martin E. Berger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0