How Much Art Did the Nazis Destroy?
During the Nazi reign, millions of paintings were looted and then destroyed. The Nazi leaders hoped to use art to fund their war machine.
Modern art dominated the Degenerate Art Exhibition where paintings such as Edvard Munch’s Ashes II were condemned as being “garbage”. Luckily, a group of civilian volunteers called the Monuments Men saved countless pieces from destruction.
1. The Portrait of Dr. Gachet
Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, known to many as Doctor Gachet, was a physician and a supporter of Impressionist painting. He befriended painters such as Cezanne and was also an amateur painter himself, signing his works under the pseudonym of Paul van Ryssel. Upon moving to Auver-sur-Oise, Gachet befriended Vincent van Gogh and provided consultation and treatment during the latter’s final months of life.
He painted two portraits of the artist, but only one remains in private hands. The other, sold at auction in 1990 to Ryoei Saito of the Daishowa Paper Manufacturing Company, has been the subject of much speculation about its provenance and ownership. A new discovery, however, points to the possibility that the painting was in fact a victim of Nazi-era art confiscations. The Stadel Museum has just published a remarkable new inventory of works that the Nazis labeled “degenerate” and seized from museums and private collections. It is the only surviving document of its kind, and a critical source for provenance researchers.
2. The Mona Lisa
During the Nazis’ first months of rule, art was a key component of the regime’s efforts to purge culture and replace it with racial purity. Goebbels set up state bureaucracies to control film, theater, music, radio, journalism, and literature.
Artists were encouraged to join state chambers on the arts, and those who did not conform were threatened with being labeled as mentally degenerate. Local officials began opening “exhibitions of shame” to define and mock modern art.
In the summer of 1911, a man named Vincenzo Peruggia was working at the Louvre fitting glass on a selection of paintings, including the Mona Lisa. He and two colleagues stole it. The theft captured the world’s imagination. Eventually, it returned to the Louvre two years later. But not before the gendarmes questioned Pablo Picasso and other known dissident artists about it. The restitution of looted artworks is an ongoing effort to this day. The art world can help by doing more thorough provenance research, and by displaying that information for all viewers.
3. The Venus de Milo
The Venus de Milo was packed in an oak crate and shipped to safer places when the Nazis threatened to occupy France. It arrived at the Chateau de Valencay along with Michelangelo’s Slaves.
Local officials soon began interpreting the Nazi leadership’s vague statements about art. They emptied museums of modern French and German works they considered “degenerate.” Then they put what remained on display in so-called chambers of horror and in an exhibit that publicly held these paintings and sculptures up to ridicule.
Forbin wrote a pamphlet claiming that the Venus was an authentic work by Praxiteles, but Quatremere responded with a letter of his own pointing out that he had discovered a fragment from the right hip and three from the left arm, and that the inscription on the base that identified Alexandros of Antioch as the statue’s creator had disappeared nearly 200 years earlier. Eventually, this argument prevailed and the Venus returned to its original home in Paris.
4. The Venus of Willendorf
The Venus of Willendorf is a stone sculpture of a corpulent woman dating from the early Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) era. It was carved from oolitic limestone and originally covered in red ochre paint, most of which has been lost over time. It depicts a rounded figure with large breasts, a protruding stomach and buttocks and skinny legs with no feet, all surrounded by what appears to be curly hair or a hat.
The Venus was seized from museums in 1937 and displayed at the notorious Degenerate Art exhibition, which included works considered to be impure or degraded by the Nazis. It was eventually burned in a bonfire on July 27, 1942. The V&A holds the only document detailing the complete list of paintings confiscated during this period. The vast majority of the artworks seized by the nazis were destroyed, but many were sold or hoarded. This was the first step in the systematic cleansing of German culture that would see Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda control film, theater, music, journalism, literature and the arts.
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