Returning objects

Restitution

The purpose of provenance research in cases of involuntary property loss is to ensure that objects are returned to their rightful owners. This process is known as restitution.

Nazi tactics

In the period spanning 1933 to 1945, Jewish citizens in Germany and Nazi-occupied territories had their property taken away, along with their rights and dignity as human beings. Tactics used by the Nazis from 1933 onwards included isolating Jewish people by, for example, barring them from trams. Increasing threats to Jewish people caused them to flee, resulting in large-scale displacement. The next step in this process of dehumanisation was the confiscation of private property and cultural goods. The Nazis took everything from them, from everyday items such as coffee cups and furniture to musical instruments and works of art. They plundered Jewish bank accounts, homes, businesses and synagogues. Apart from denying Jewish people their material property, the deliberate purpose of this massive-scale looting was to degrade them. The final step was systematic murder.

Involuntary property loss

Theft was just one of the ways in which Jewish families lost their property. Many had to sell assets and valuables to flee the country or pay for a hiding place. Jews wanting to leave the Netherlands were obliged to pay a huge sum of money to the German state in the form of the Reich Flight Tax (Reichsfluchtsteuer). These acts are reasons why the term ‘involuntary property loss’ better applies to these situations than ‘art looting’.

Returning objects

Following the liberation of the Netherlands, in 1945 the looting of art during the period of Nazi persecution was designated as a crime against humanity. In the museum context, looted personal objects represent not only their material, historical and aesthetic value, but also the ongoing injustice of dehumanisation. The return of lost property to its rightful heirs acknowledges and connects them with this injustice. It offers an epilogue to the historical story. While it can never undo the wrongs done, in some cases it offers an opportunity for legal redress.

Restitution procedure

The Dutch organisation which since 2001 has been processing requests for the restitution of art looted by the Nazis is the Advisory Committee on the Assessment of Restitution Applications for Items of Cultural Value and the Second World War, or Restitution Committee for short. If any person suspects that they have rights to a particular work of art, the Restitution Committee investigate how it was lost, and by whom, during Nazi rule. It then decides whether the artwork should be returned to the claimant. The Restitution Commission then issues its recommendations to the government minister responsible, who in turn gives a binding ruling on whether the work will be restituted.

Restitutions from the Rijksmuseum

In the period from 2002 to 2023, the Rijksmuseum restituted 150 objects to the heirs of the original owners. The largest of these restitutions comprised the 92 Meissen porcelain object groups* that were returned to the heirs of the collectors Margarethe Oppenheimer (1878-1949) and Franz Oppenheimer (1871–1950) in 2019.

In other cases we restituted single works, such as the Caspar van Wittel drawing that we returned to the heirs of Michael Berolzheimer (1866-1942) in 2017 and the Pieter Coecke van Aelst drawing that we returned to the heirs of Arthur Feldmann (1877-1941) in 2023. For more information about objects restituted by the Rijksmuseum, please visit the website of the Restitution Committee.

*In this context the term ‘object group’ denotes a single museum object such as a tableware set comprising multiple items.

Visibility in the public collection

The Rijksmuseum has been able to purchase some of the restituted objects from the heirs. Such is the case with the salt cellars owned by Emma Budge and part of the Oppenheimer Meissen porcelain. Once the legal restoration of involuntarily lost property is complete, we are then able – with the consent of the heirs – to display the objects in the museum again. We believe it is valuable in these cases also to draw attention to the story of the looting and restitution of the objects.

Contact with families

During and after the conduction of the provenance survey, provenance specialists from the Rijksmuseum maintained regular contact with those who lived through the war and/or their surviving relatives. Whenever it uncovers evidence that an object had been involuntarily lost, the museum endeavours to make contact with the former owners or family members.

If you want to find out for yourself whether a specific family or company appears in the documentation of the provenance survey, please visit Collection Online. Click on ‘Advanced search’ and scroll to the search field marked ‘Provenance name’. Insert the name of the family or company concerned into this field. If the name came up during the provenance survey into the period around the Second World War you will find objects connected with this name. You are also welcome to contact the Rijksmuseum’s provenance specialists directly by email: provenance@rijksmuseum.nl.