Bavarian museum returns reliefs after 1933 photo proves Nazi looting

The Bavarian National Museum in Munich will return two late-medieval reliefs to the heirs of Jewish banker and art collector Jakob Goldschmidt after a 1933 photograph proved they had once belonged to his family, BR reported.

The black-and-white photograph, recently discovered by Goldschmidt’s heirs, shows the two small wooden reliefs hanging above a Baroque chest in his Berlin villa. Made in Nuremberg in the late 15th century, they depict male and female members of a donor family beside a family coat of arms.

The photograph, together with further research, established that the reliefs were in the Goldschmidt family’s possession in 1933. Goldschmidt emigrated to Switzerland and later the United States after the Nazis came to power.

His art collection was auctioned by the Helbing auction house in Frankfurt in June 1936. Gerhart Bollert, a Berlin legal adviser and collector of medieval art, bought the reliefs. After his death in 1947, the Bavarian National Museum took over his private collection, including the two works.

Germany committed itself under the 1998 Washington Declaration to returning Nazi-looted art held by the state to former owners or their heirs without a statute of limitations. The Bavarian National Museum has already returned more than 100 silver objects. The Bavarian State Painting Collections have returned five works to the heirs of Jewish collectors in the past 12 months, including the painting Children’s Room by Berlin Impressionist Lesser Ury to the Goldschmidt family.