EVERY OBJECT HAS AN OWNER – TAKING RESPONSIBILITY ON THE FUTURE OF LOOTED ART
EVERY OBJECT HAS AN OWNER – TAKING RESPONSIBILITY ON THE FUTURE OF LOOTED ART

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to analyze the difficulties of conducting a provenance research for Nazi era looted art, in order to function within the premise that every object has an owner. Public and private collections worldwide contain an unknown number of objects for which there is no provenance, no history. Therefore, there is no understanding of who owned these objects. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the axiom that no object is heirless unless it is labeled as such. Every object begins with an owner, its maker or its creator. Therefore, once it leaves its original, primal owner, the path of the object will be either licit or illicit depending on the circumstances of its removal, transfer, transactions that it was subjected to and the larger historical context in which these movements or translocations took place. This paper begins with a brief history of Nazi’s organized plunder. The paper then moves to describe Provenance research and its importance within the field of Looted Art of Nazi Era. Furthermore, the paper reviews the efforts made by various actors, to raise the issue of looted art to an international level, and the attempts made to set various European Governments Cultural agendas. We will then discuss the Gurlitt Trove, which will lead us to describe the German national initiative, and raise questions as for what can be done to change the ongoing situation within European Culture, what can be done with lack of due diligence and can there be change by increased scrutiny of the trade.

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