Jüdische Familien und ihre Kunstsammlungen in Leipzig

[00:00:35]Good evening and welcome.

[00:00:37]On behalf of the Studium Generale of the HTWK Leipzig, I warmly welcome you to today's open lecture series on the topic of Jewish families and their art collection in Leipzig. In 2010, a horse, an older, somewhat inconspicuous man, fell on the train from Zurich to Munich and had €9000 with him. Customs investigators take notice.

[00:01:02]Two years later, they search his apartment and find, behind drawn curtains, an art collection that is second to none. Over 1200 works of art, including a work by Matth Schagal and a Spitzweg. The origins of many works of art can never be clarified. What is certain is that the owner, Helmut Goleb, whose father collected the majority of the pictures during the Nazi era, will not reveal this origin. And for many images, this cannot be clarified to this day. Many are suspected of having originated from Jewish ownership, and one trail leads to Leipzig.

[00:01:49]Today we welcome Dr. Kat Ulrikesas, excuse me, from the Museum of Fine Arts, who has one of the most exciting jobs I know. She is a provenance researcher and will take us today on this journey to possibly this picture, we did n't agree on it beforehand, um, but to the Leipzig art collections of Jewish citizens. Thank you.

[00:02:13]Welcome. Stage yours.

[00:02:24]Yes, thank you very much. Ah, yes, great.

[00:02:26]The microphone works. Please let me know if I am too quiet or too loud. Um, I have been a provenance researcher at the MDBK since 2022 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for the invitation and introduce a research project that has been running at the MDBK for a year and a half now, in which we are conducting provenance research on the art collections of Jewish families from Leipzig. Provenance research at a medium-sized municipal museum is not a given. We raised funds for this. We have created a position that supports me in my research, and we essentially conduct the research while the business is running.

[00:03:28]Um, that makes it all the more important that we do this research, because we are conducting basic research on these 21 families that we have identified for the research project, who we assume may have had an art collection or a larger art holding. [snorting] The research on these families is, well, heterogeneous.

[00:03:57]Um, among the families are families like the Hinrichsen family, whose history in Leipzig is actually very well known and very well researched, at least the biography, but also families like the Heilperen family, about whom hardly anything is known.

[00:04:21]However, with regard to art collections, it can generally be stated that these have not been the focus of research interest, even in the well- researched families. Um, usually only biographical data is recorded. Um, if it was a company, then the entrepreneurs' professional data was recorded. This persecution story is often recorded, but not the art collections.

[00:04:57]We only really have knowledge about art collections belonging to Jewish families when these art collections were restituted, such as those of the Hinrichsen or Heiner families.

[00:05:10]These restitutions happened in the 1990s and 2000s and are based on the EALG, which is the Restitution Compensation Act in the 1990s, or then in the 2000s on the Washington Principles. And this restitution, which the MDPK carried out, has led to increased research being conducted on the family and their art holdings in these restitution cases, including in our own collection. And that's why these are the families who actually know the most about the art collection at that time.

[00:05:51]Um, the research project is important because it sheds light on cultural life in Leipzig at the beginning of the 20th century.

[00:06:00]and makes visible the networking and role of Jewish families.

[00:06:06]The art collections of these families were torn apart by the persecution under National Socialism. Some family members were able to take their works of art with them when they emigrated. Others had to sell them before fleeing, or they were confiscated, auctioned off, or transferred to the MBK.

[00:06:26]There is simply no comprehensive documentation of the art holdings of the respective families.

[00:06:32]This highly heterogeneous state of preservation and the very different current locations of the respective artworks make research difficult. Um, especially if the artworks are privately owned today, we can hardly reconstruct their history.

[00:06:54]Knowledge of the private art collection in Leipzig is not only of interest for questions about bourgeois collecting, but also for the Leipzig cultural scene in general, since the families were also important players in the art world. Um, I'd like to introduce eight of the families we are researching today.

[00:07:22]These are the families about whom we already have quite a lot of knowledge regarding their art holdings. Um, first I will give a short introduction to the topic, situate the family a little, and explain the bourgeois collecting in Leipzig, and at the end I will give an outlook.

[00:07:43]From the mid-18th century onwards, there were extensive art collections in Leipzig. Um, you're going to hear a lot of names today. Um, these include the collections of Heinrich Meer, Christian Daniel Findekeller, Johann Heinrich Linke, Gottlieb Friedrich Milius, Lorenz von Aldershelm, Elias Sigismund Reinhard, Johann Christoph Richter and Gottfried Winkler. So, we are now in the 18th century.

[00:08:15]Um, there are also catalogs of these collections, such as the Index Museini, i.e., of the collection um Linke, um, which was published between 1783 and 1787 and comprises three volumes and is one of the most comprehensive catalogs of collections in modern times. Or there is also the collection catalogue of Johann Friedrich Richter. Um, here's an example, um, which appeared in 1743 and was a blue dye merchant. There are also watercolors by Christian Friedrich Wiegand for the collection of Gottfried Winkler, which were created around 1800 and are now located in the city history museum. And, uh, Winkler's collection was probably the most extensive in the field of fine art, with 1300 paintings, almost 2500 drawings and around 80,000 graphics, and, uh, that's actually comparable in size to the smaller museum of today.

[00:09:33][snorting] The collections mostly combined different genera. You can't see that here in the watercolor, but you can see it a little bit in the graphic representation of Richter's collection. So, as you can see here on the wall, it included paintings, but also, um, antique- looking objects. Um, in the foreground you can see corals, shells, and books. Here again are corals, starfish, so naturalia and, um, also applied art, in this case two globes, which simultaneously refer to the very important aspect of bourgeois art collections, namely to create order and to sort and classify the world. um, the division of collection areas um, the fine arts, the applied arts, archaeological objects, natural history objects such as stones, corals, plants and animals. This only happened in the 19th century, when specialized museums also began to develop. What was of much greater interest to the bourgeois collections of the 18th century was that there was an exact classification system according to which they established the collections, and that there was a kind of claim to explain the world, which is also evident in the collection catalogs.

[00:11:14]And, um, it was n't just about owning beautiful, interesting, and extraordinary things, but also about representing the world and thus having the ability to order this world and to control certain senses.

[00:11:34]In the late 18th century, at the beginning of the 19th century, the most important collection of fine art in Leipzig was added. Um, namely the collection of Maximilian Speck von Sternburg, who lived from 1776 to 1856 and actually created one of the most extensive and highest quality art collections at the beginning and middle of the 19th century. Um, he presented this on his estate in Lychen from 1834 onwards, and thus the collection was also accessible to visitors. A visitors' book has been preserved.

[00:12:18]Um, several catalogs have been published. Here I show the frontispiece from 1826, but there are also collections from 1820, 1837, 1840, 1889 and 1904, um, these, um, these, so catalogs of this collection, um, during the collecting, so from the Speck von Sternburg collection, which today, after a restitution case in the course of the land reform, the works were confiscated, um, during the SPZ, i.e., the Soviet occupation zone. In the 1990s, a restitution claim was filed and the city of Leipzig was able to reach an amicable agreement with the family. A foundation was established, so that the works are now located in the MDBK. And based on the history of the works, it can also be determined that the works that were now in the collection of Speck von Sternburg, for example this work by Leress, were previously in the Winkler collection. You remember, this is uh, the collection with the watercolors, and uh, this godsend by Balen was previously in the Richter collection. This was also a significant collection from the 18th century, where they saw the other illustration. Often, in bourgeois art collections in a region, the works are indeed sold, so this intergenerational collecting was not actually intended by the individuals, the collectors. Often, the collections were sold after the death of the collector, but they often remained in the region and were then bought up again by other art collectors in the region, so that one can often trace such a transfer of art in a particular region. In the middle of the 19th century, when the pictorial genres were being differentiated for collections, the Leipzig bourgeoisie launched an initiative to found an art association.

[00:14:45]Um, there were actually two initiatives, one in 1825 by Wilhelm Ambrosius Bart and Karl Gustav Bner. Karl Gustav Burner was an art dealer, one of the most important from Leipzig, whose gallery still exists today. He primarily dealt in graphic art and was active internationally. In 1836, Karl Lampe and Hermann Härte initiated the founding of an art association, and the two associations merged in 1839 and jointly advanced the project.

[00:15:23]crawl.

[00:15:25]I am showing here, um, after the founding of the Leipzig Art Association, a share certificate, um, for members of the art association. You could become a member by purchasing shares, it was a public limited company and, um, one share cost as much as an annual membership fee, and the goals of this art association were to promote art. Um, they wanted to hold exhibitions and then make purchases from these exhibitions to also promote the art that is created locally.

[00:16:02]And they wanted to build up a municipal art collection and then use it to found a municipal museum, which didn't exist before.

[00:16:12][Snorting] is a very typical bourgeois form of engagement in the 19th century. We can observe this in Magdeburg and Kemnitz in Saxony, but also in other large German cities, that where there was no court collection, such as in Dresden, the citizens of the city campaigned to establish an art museum and have an art collection there.

[00:16:43]Um, the club's collection, which had been built up up to that point, was then transferred to the city of Leipzig in 1848 with the stipulation that a museum be built.

[00:17:00]The Museum of Fine Arts was then completed in 1858 at today's Augustusplatz, um, where the Gewandhaus stands today.

[00:17:09]And the basis of this museum was the collection of the association and a donation of 153 pieces from the private collection of Adolf Heinrich Schlettter, who donated a large number of paintings to the museum and also donated funds to make the museum building possible. Um, the families active in the art association, who were committed to the founding and equipping of the museum, often also collected art themselves. These collections often found their way into museums upon the death of the members or family members. So, it always went hand in hand. People who collected art in a city during the 19th and early 20th centuries were also actively involved in the cultural scene.

[00:18:11]Examples include Gustav Moritz Klaus, Christian Heinrich Demjani, August Otto Gela, Gustav Harkord, Elisabeth Hoann, Karl Lampe, Johann Gottlot von Quant, Caroline Matilde Schumann, Amelie von Ritzenberg, and Rudolf Benno von Römer.

[00:18:34]These collectors are all quite well researched. So the collecting practices in Leipzig, let's say up to the end of the 19th century, are actually quite well documented.

[00:18:47]Um, towards the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, art collecting became more differentiated, because it became increasingly common among the bourgeoisie to furnish their living spaces with high-quality art collections, and art and art ownership became an increasingly natural part of bourgeois life. In Leipzig, Max Klinger and the Academy, which is today's HGB, also led to many artists being constantly present and visible, and many from the bourgeoisie specifically supported these artists. Max Klinger, the most famous of these artists, was active in promoting art on a supra-regional level and, um, very well networked.

[00:19:48]This, um, expansion of art purchases, meaning that more and more people were buying art, also led to the art market becoming increasingly differentiated and expanded.

[00:20:02]And so there were quite a few galleries in Leipzig that had not yet been researched. This might be another project, and these galleries often operated across regions.

[00:20:13]First and foremost, there's still the auction house CG Burner, and others include the Del Week gallery or the Bayer & Sohn art dealership.

[00:20:26]Art, which then played such a strong role in bourgeois life, had several functions. Once upon a time, owning art, buying art, acquaintance with artists, integration into the cultural system, was a distinguishing feature of families and an expression of belonging to the educated middle class, which led to a feeling of belonging to the cosmopolitan elite, and networking also played a very important role in Leipzig, which as a city was an important economic center, especially with a focus on various sectors, for example, the fur trade or publishing houses. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were also many art collections. To name a few, there is, for example, the Brockhaus family. Um, you know the name from the dictionary, it is indeed the family of, um, Alfons Dür, Julius Otto Gottschalt, Edgar Julius Herfurt, Henry Hinrichsen, Georg Hürzel, Gustav and Kläre Kirstein, the brothers Max and Paul von Bleichert, Fritz von Hak and Alfred Time.

[00:21:57]The families are very closely connected with each other.

[00:22:02]They meet regularly in various clubs and associations.

[00:22:07]For example, in the Rotary Club, in the Leipzig Art Association, in the Arts and Crafts Association, which is the support group of the Krassiuseum, in the Friends of the Graphic Collection Association, in the LIA, which is the association for the Leipzig Annual Exhibition.

[00:22:24]Then there is another association called Friends of Graphic Art. There is the Leipzig Bibliophile Evening.

[00:22:31]Um, [snorting] then there's the Gedok, the community of German and Austrian female artists and art lovers. is a decidedly emancipatory, i.e., women's association, where we can prove that many women from Leipzig were members and networked, just as in the general German Women's Association and the House of Women, which promoted women in publishing and book production.

[00:23:00]There were also Jewish associations, such as the Leipzig Lodge of the Pneorden, where there were many members who also collected art. Um, I'm showing a Klinge exhibition from 1907 at the Leipzig Art Association here simply to illustrate that the families who collected art and were active in such associations were also very closely connected with the local artists. Um, if you see this small sculpture here in front, which can now be found in the MDBK, then such photos are always an important source.

[00:23:50]A Jewish family acquired it in 1907 from the exhibition, and we assume that the family also had an art collection. Now, for example, some of the families I just mentioned were Jewish. This simply proves that since the beginning of the 19th century, uh, since the beginning of the 20th century, Jewish families have simply been an integral part of the bourgeoisie in Leipzig. Um, you probably already know, if you have been following the lecture series regularly, that from the middle of the 19th century onwards, more and more Jewish families settled in Leipzig.

[00:24:41]And then, um, I'd say the second and third generations were partly fully integrated. Some of them have been converted. Um, and in the files I'm reading about Max Klinger, um, there isn't really a very big difference, so at least Max Klinger doesn't make a huge difference. Um, well, it's definitely not usually mentioned what religion the families of his patrons belonged to. Um, however, in some passages there are places where, for example, Max Klinger writes that he was quite shocked that a person had expressed something anti-Semitic and that he now hopes that his friends are not offended, that he finds it very bad.

[00:25:30]So, it's still a topic in the cultural scene, but when they jointly promote culture, are active together in the clubs, the families work together quite normally, I'd say. So integration is actually completely there.

[00:25:52]Um, in the research project, we have now identified 21 families that we assumed might have a larger art collection or holding.

[00:26:10]We, um, I'm not going to read them all out now, but you can read them yourself.

[00:26:15]Um, we have, uh, established different criteria. Firstly, one's profession and social standing. So, to be able to buy art, you obviously need a certain amount of starting capital.

[00:26:29]Um, and then, um, I'll also show you a few, um, sources we work with today. We went through sources like exhibition catalogs, searched for donor names, and, um, at art dealerships, we looked at the customer lists, searched for family names, and also family or friendly connections in the art scene were, uh, partly an indication that the family might have had a larger art collection, and of course also in the documentation of Nazi confiscations, which are quite well documented, um, so you can basically go back and determine, okay, if art was taken from them, then they did have it. um, a very important source for us. Now I'm going to jump around a bit. I do n't usually do this, but because the material is so extensive, I didn't want to include it all in the PowerPoint, but I didn't want to withhold it from you. Um, a little insight into how we work. So, a very important source for us are the exhibition catalogues of the Leipzig Art Association. M regularly organizes exhibitions from private collections in Leipzig or from private collections. In this case, I'm showing, uh, a catalog from 1931, uh, for newer masters. "Newer masters" in this case refers to art of the late 20th century, i.e., Impressionism and realistic academic painting, Secessionist painting, one could say. Um, and as you can see, sometimes, well, unfortunately we no longer have the documentation of the exhibition archived with us.

[00:28:35]Um, well, we no longer have the written correspondence that usually relates to such an exhibition, where you also have live contracts. It's like today, where you negotiate loan agreements with the owners, where you first write letters and ask if you can borrow the work for the exhibition.

[00:28:53]Unfortunately, we no longer have this correspondence, but at least the lending families are listed in the catalogue, especially for all works. So, we have the family names here, and families like Max von Bleichert, whom I mentioned, and Hermann Halberstamm, about whom you will hear more in a moment, or Heine, already appear. And as you can see, the number of artworks is of course also thematically dependent on how large the collection might have been or how willing they were to give something. Otherwise, it looks like a completely normal exhibition catalogue.

[00:29:43]This means that, um, the artists are listed here and, um, the names of the Leigebinter are written here, but you have to take the catalogue number and then assign it accordingly.

[00:29:57]Ah yes, they should have told me that beforehand [laughter] they should have told me sooner. That's how I have it. Now I'll show you again. Exactly. Now you see it. Yes, sorry. It's good that you said something [snort]. So, this is the catalog. Exactly. From private ownership, and um, there's an introductory text, and here's the list of lenders, and behind that are the catalog numbers, so we can use them as a guide in our research. And then the artists come along with the works and the catalogue number, so that it can be assigned. Here are some other handwritten, um, notes, which I unfortunately do n't know who made. Um, and at the end there's even a small list of illustrations. Well, in some cases we can identify them very precisely. Wilhelm Leibel, for example, is a work from the Hinrichsen collection here, the painter Hinrichsen, who was also a restitution case in the 1990s.

[00:31:26]Yes, now I have to start the PowerPoint presentation again.

[00:31:41]I wanted to show you a second exhibition catalogue, because this was exactly the kind of exhibition catalogue we as provenance researchers love.

[00:31:51]However, there are also exhibition catalogues that contain absolutely nothing.

[00:31:58]Um, these are old masters from private collections, an exhibition from 1929, and you can see that now. Yes, [snorting] exactly. And there is also an introductory text and a list of lenders.

[00:32:18]And um, here is the Brockhaus family I mentioned.

[00:32:24]Alfred, who is part of the project, then the Halberstamm family, and that's how the names in the project come about. However, no catalog numbers are written behind them here, and the lever handles are also listed in the catalog.

[00:32:43]However, during the course of the project we found a copy in the Netherlands, um, at the RKD there. It's an art historical research institute with a large library, and they have a copy with annotations where someone has written in pencil who owns the works.

[00:33:09]Here, for example, we have Brockhaus Leipzig, and so it's not natural everywhere, and one special example is the Halberstamm family, about whom we have done a lot of research in the project.

[00:33:26]We initially assumed that they only had modern art, i.e., Impressionist art and classical modernism [snorting], and now, through the catalogue, we also know that they collected some old art as well.

[00:33:38]So, we'll put the little puzzle pieces together a bit.

[00:33:53]Okay, perfect. Um, so not all the works that we found in these sources, for example, can we immediately identify. By identifying, or determining the work's identity, it means that we know exactly which work of art is meant. This is because the sizes are often not always correctly stated in such catalogues, the titles change, the titles are always named differently, artist attributions can change over the years, and, for example, an artist like Max Liebermann simply painted many Wannsee gardens, and if it only says Wannsee garden, then we don't know which one it actually was. So, um, for such a research project, the attribution of the work, the precise identification of the work, is actually of great importance, but this is particularly lengthy and, uh, complicated.

[00:34:56]Another important source for the biography, for example of the families, are the registration records of the city of Leipzig, which are located in the state archive and the city archive, and the restitution files. The reparations files are documents from the post-war period because Jewish families could apply for reparations in the territory of the Allied occupation zone. And these restitution files often contain detailed descriptions of the escape, the immigration, what was taken from them, what professional disadvantages they suffered; so even in compensation files there are also professional disadvantages. Um, they have learned about it, and often the families have then received some form of monetary compensation, some form of reparation.

[00:35:54]These files date back to the 1950s and mostly extend into the 1960s, because these were incredibly long processes and there was a constant exchange of letters. So, there are very comprehensive descriptions and files.

[00:36:11]So, now I would like to introduce you to eight families and briefly discuss the art collections that were part of the project. One family, or rather collectors, was not part of the project. But it is still very important. That's Moritz Kräer, I'll get to him later.

[00:36:31]Um, Antonie and Hermann Halberstamm, or rather Antonie called Tony, um, is the first family. I have brought two pictures with me. Here you see, um, the married couple Hermann and Antonie Halberstamm. And uh, here you see the three daughters of the family, um, Beatrice, Alisia and Edit.

[00:36:59]Um, all three daughters studied humanities or at the HGB (Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig). Hermann Halberstamm was a merchant and lawyer and then worked in his father-in-law's company from 1904 onwards.

[00:37:14]Um, because Tony Heerstamm is a born Ariovic, one of the most important and well-known Jewish families in Leipzig. Um, you probably know the Ariovic House, a very wealthy fur trader who was very socially engaged. The Halberstamm family was also involved in the founding of the Ariovic Foundation in 1930, and they were very extensively involved in social causes. Um, in the Ariowits company, Hermann Halberstamm and his brother-in-law Max Ariowits then ran the business and they amassed a large art collection.

[00:38:03]We can see this in various Leigh exhibitions and also in various donations to the MDBK.

[00:38:13]Um, for example, this self-portrait by Eduard Einschlag was a gift from 1927. Um, they also gave them graphics and a drawing by August Rudang.

[00:38:30]Um, Hermann Halberstamm was a member of the Leipzig Art Association and also an auditor there, and was therefore very integrated into the art and cultural scene. Tony Halberstamm was himself, um, let's say, creatively active and gave performances, i.e., literary pieces, um, in front of an audience, um, accompanied by music, um, yes, portrayed and performed in an acting style.

[00:39:04]Um, Hermann and Tony Halberstamm then emigrated via Austria to Paris in 195, where they lived until 1939, together with Tony Halberstamm's mother, who died there, and then the couple emigrated via southern France and South America to the USA.

[00:39:30]Beatrice Halberstamm lived with her husband Leonard Kronhalberstamm in Berlin and emigrated to London in 1939.

[00:39:43]Um, Alicia, uh, half of the tribe, was married to uh, Lieberg and emigrated to Italy in 1935 and later to South America, to Argentina.

[00:39:57]Edit Halberstamm married an artist, Helmut Weisenborn, who was also a professor at the HGB, and emigrated to London in 1938 and later to Argentina.

[00:40:11]um [snorting] the collection, of the collection um we have been able to gather 30 works so far in our project.

[00:40:19]Um, that means compiling, that we haven't yet identified all 30, uh, they're there, so there are also works like, I don't know, the folded landscape by Lehoogt, but we do n't know exactly which one, but we know that they had one. Um, the collection includes German and French Impressionism.

[00:40:44]Artists like August Gaue and Georg Kolbe, both sculptors of the early 20th century, er, Leipzig artists, also old masters, as we have now learned.

[00:40:55]And [snorting] indeed, a great many works were able to be taken into immigration by the family.

[00:41:04]presumably because they left quite early, as early as 1935, apart from the family of Beatrice Halberstamm, Kronenhalberstammen, who emigrated from Berlin to London only in 1939, whose belongings were actually confiscated in Hamburg and are still missing today. And of course, their Berlin villas were quite extensively furnished with works of art, carpets, and porcelain.

[00:41:37]Um, you see here, I always bring along a few examples, um, a work by Max Leugt, which uh appeared on the art market last year and is now back in family ownership and originally comes from the collection of Halber Stamm. And um, a very nice portrait of Max Liebermann by Tony Halberstamm. which remained in the family's possession and still is today. And Max Liebermann was also a Jewish artist who died in 1935 and was one of the most famous and well-known artists in the 1920s. His works were actually among the most expensive on the art market, apart from the old masters.

[00:42:35]He was also a very influential and important figure in German cultural policy and was extremely popular with the bourgeoisie for his portrait painting, and there are many wealthy citizens in Leipzig and throughout Germany who had their portraits painted by Max Liebermann and also by Tony Halberstamm.

[00:43:03]We suspect that they also commissioned other works, or that he may even have come to your home to create the work, because we also know a drawing by Edit halber Stamm, that is, by one of Liebermann's daughters, when she was a child.

[00:43:24]The next family I would like to introduce is the family of Margarete and Max Heiner. um, with their children Tekler, Walter, Johanna and Hermann. Um, Heine, the Heine Brothers, is actually quite well -known; it was a large textile company in Leipzig, founded in 1865. Um, Hermannheine, Max Hermannheine died in 1933.

[00:43:54]Um, and his wife, however, lived until 1938 and experienced the confiscation of the apartment furnishings, including the art collection.

[00:44:05]We know the art collection from various sources. There are also loans in exhibitions and, um, there was a fairly large restitution process in the 1990s, where we also know about the, um, art collection. [snorting] Um, Heine was a member of the Society of Bibliophiles and the Leipzig Art Association, and like all the other um works, he also donated them to the MDBK [snorting] and he also had other um family connections to other uh important families in Leipzig, who are also part of the project. For example, the Jolowitz family. um, who also collected art. In 1988, the apartment furnishings were confiscated and TLHE, along with her husband and one daughter, was taken into custody. This was also a very common principle of the NSB authorities, to extort cultural assets, houses, but also company shares from families, especially company shares of family members who had already lived in safe havens abroad. And that was also the case with, um, the Heine family.

[00:45:32]Um, while Teklar Heine was being held hostage, her brothers, who had already emigrated, um, transferred their business shares to the Heiner brothers, and with the transfer to the NSBörden, Tekkline and her husband were then allowed to leave Germany and then they emigrated to Stockholm.

[00:45:56][snorting] Um, Hermann, Walter, and Johanna had already emigrated.

[00:46:03]We had contact with the descendants of the Heine family as part of the research project. And so we received a wonderful treasure trove of photographs that show us, [snorting], how the art was presented in the rooms of the Heiner family, how the family lived with art. Um, so Villa Heine still exists today; it's located on Wächterstraße and houses the German Literature Institute. And in the photo album you can see the apartment furnishings and recognize many works from the Heine collection. So, nobody really knows him, but that's exactly what Oscar Kokoschka is, for example.

[00:46:58]They had large tapestries in the dining room.

[00:47:04]Um, that's an Alfred Sisley and a Kolbe figure.

[00:47:10]So, based on the photos, this is uh a Renoir, uh, one can identify the works that once belonged to the collection, uh, Heine.

[00:47:21][snorting] These photos of home furnishings also clearly show that our aesthetic ideas, especially those of French Impressionism and classical modernism, to which Oscar Kokoschka also belongs, do not necessarily coincide with or compete with the families' living environment and where they hung in that environment. So, I would say this is a typical 19th-century interior, stylistically, um, in terms of the furniture and the overall feel of the furniture, like Neo Rococo and Neobaroque, um, heavy curtains, dark colors. Well, that was simply the interior design style of the time.

[00:48:15]And, um, in these rooms, which often had walls covered with fabric and heavy wallpaper, there were works by Renois and Kokoschka, but also by other Brücke artists. So, this is a completely different aesthetic than what we have today when we walk through a museum and everything is totally clean.

[00:48:39]But very few people have ever furnished their homes in the Bauhaus style, even if that was in the 1920s, simply with tubular steel furniture. These were rather exceptions. [snorting] Um, we were able to gather approximately 50 works of art from the Heine collection. The available sources are quite good.

[00:49:05]Um, they've already seen both works in the apartment photos. Um, we also had Ferdinandler, he's a Swiss artist of classical modernism.

[00:49:17]And here I have for you a file from the persecution, this is from the Leipzig Foreign Exchange Office, where works that Heine owned are listed, and the small numbers in pencil that you see next to it are our inventory numbers from the MDBK, so they then moved to the N MDBK, and I always have to ask, what role did the museum play in such proceedings? Werner Tolser, the director at the time, appreciated the apartment furnishings in 1939. So, he was commissioned to do this and then pleaded with the NSBörden (National Socialist German Publishers and Booksellers) to transfer many works from the collection to the MDBK (Museum of Fine Arts Berlin), especially works of French Impressionism, because we had very little of that. Um, and thus Werner Tolser added to the collection, and the MDBK directly profited from the confiscation of cultural assets during the Nazi era and, yes, enriched itself through it.

[00:50:31]The Hinrichsen family is a very well -known family in Leipzig. This is the family, um, who own the famous music publisher CF Peters, which is known worldwide. um, led. So, the, um, Henry Hinrichsen, whom you see here, um, took over from his uncle Max Abraham, um, and um, this family is very well researched. Um, the Hinrichsen family had, I think, 7, yes, seven children. Um, Henry Hinrichsen and Martha Hinrichsen emigrated to the Netherlands during dinner time. Um, they could n't escape the German occupation of the Netherlands. Martha Hinrichsen died there in 1941. She had diabetes and, as a Jew, did not receive diabetes medication. Henry Henrichsen was then deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz and murdered there in 1942. um, as well as two children of the Hinrichsen family. Five children survived the disaster and emigrated.

[00:51:48]Um, Henry Henrichsen, um, was a member of the art association, a member of the Society of Bibliophiles. His uncle Max Abraham was also closely associated with the museum and donated a very important sculpture by Max Klinger, the Kassra, if you know the museum, it is a large marble sculpture. Um, Hinrichsen also donated various works to the museum or supported its acquisitions.

[00:52:18]Um, here you can see another house, uh, in Talstraße, where uh, the publishing house of the Hinrichen family was also located, namely CF Peters Verlag, and uh, where the Henriette Goldschmid School was located, because Hinrichsen was also very socially engaged and supported Henriette Goldschmidt, who founded the first university for women, and provided financial backing so that this university could be established, and was generally very committed to the education of women and girls, to supporting women who uh, come from difficult social circumstances.

[00:53:05]Um, we were able to gather 40 works from the Hinrichsen collection. Um, the Hinrichsen family had a surprisingly conservative taste in art, actually almost the most conservative of all the umm art collections presented here. By conservative I mean something like bourgeois respectability, so lots of Karl Spitzweg, late 19th century painting, Wilhelm Leibel, so rather dark, very academic painting, no French Impressionism, no German Impressionism, no modernism. And you can see, as you can see here with the work of Josef Stieler, that he also thematically, i.e. Behofen Behofen Portrait, that you can also see the thematic connection to music in his art collection. Um, in the middle you can see a bust of Henriette Goldschmidt, which Henry Hinrichsen donated to the museum.

[00:54:09]Um, and for the graphics we were actually able to identify old masters like Dürer and Rembrandt.

[00:54:19]The restitution case, there you see the work of Fritz von Ude, that was part of a restitution case. Oh, Stieler was also part of a restitution case.

[00:54:31]However, they were restituted in very different ways. And that is, um, a very special case, very, very extraordinary.

[00:54:40]Um, Walter Hinrichsen, a son of Henry Henrichsen, came to Leipzig in 1945 as an Allied soldier. In Leipzig, the Americans were there first, before the Russian occupation, and he actually went to the museum and demanded the return of his father's works and collection, in person. And um, back then Werner Tupser was still director, but he was soon dismissed.

[00:55:10]However, um, they already knew each other, so it's like a large network. So all the families, the collector families, of course also knew the museum staff, and Walter Hinrichsen of course also knew Werner Tubser personally and demanded the return of his father's property.

[00:55:28]Normally, restitution claims in the Soviet occupation zone after 1945 were generally rejected.

[00:55:37]But I suspect that because Walter Hinrichsen personally stood in front of Werner Tolser, it actually worked and he got most of his works back in 1946.

[00:55:53]But he had to make a concession.

[00:55:56]He agreed, in a sort of quid pro quo, to donate three works to the museum and transfer them to the collection as the Hinrichsen Foundation. And he essentially got Stieler back in 1946, and he was forced to establish Fritz von Ude in 1946.

[00:56:21]Um, in 1998 there was the so-called Washington Conference, where 43 states met in Washington and discussed how we should deal with the cultural assets that are still in the trains, um, in museums, in public institutions due to Nazi persecution, and made a moral commitment to carry out restitutions.

[00:56:50]to conduct provenance research even though the injustice is actually time-barred.

[00:56:56]These Washington Principles are also known as the German Principles, which the German state has also signed, and a declaration was then drafted in 1999 by the leading municipal associations. The federal and state governments have recognized this declaration, and therefore the Washington Principles are binding for every public institution in Germany. Among other things, they state that if we identify looted property resulting from persecution, we must restitute it.

[00:57:30]Based on these Washington Principles, the family, the descendants of the Hinrichsen family, actually approached the museum again and demanded the return of the three remaining works, arguing that it was a forced donation in 1946.

[00:57:49]This was also recognized, and therefore the three works were restituted in 2002 and 2004.

[00:58:01]However, there are still some works missing, so now I'll show you another source. Um, there was an exhibition in the museum, uh, from non- African collections, where the museum presented all or many works in an exhibition in 1941 that had been newly added to the collection due to the NSV.

[00:58:28]The exhibition was primarily organized by the curator Hildegard Heine, because Werner Tolser was repeatedly serving as a soldier, and there is correspondence between the two concerning the exhibition.

[00:58:46]And um, regarding the exhibition, there is a newspaper clipping here, where we see a work by Hans Thomas, which was also in the Hinrichsen collection and exhibited there, but whose current location we do n't know at all.

[00:59:05]Very prominent in this exhibition were, uh, graphics by the Kirstein family, that is, Max Klinger, graphics by the Kirstein family. Um, the next collector couple I'd like to introduce is, um, Gustav and Claire Kirstein [snorting], um, with their children Gabriele and Marianne, and Kirstein was publisher and partner of Seemannverlag, a significant art publisher in Leipzig. um, for example, the magazine for fine art, the art chronicle, the Time Becker, which is an artist's lexicon, also many art prints and portfolios, artist portfolios.

[00:59:48]So the artists' portfolios and the collaboration with, for example, Korinth is actually comparable to, uh, Paul Kassierer, who also did that in Berlin.

[01:00:02]The Seemann publishing house, which since 1919 was predominantly managed by Gustav Kirstein, was one of the leading and most influential publishers in the art world throughout Germany, and Gustav Kirstein was also active as an author and art historian, and also on copyright issues. He was a member of the Society of Libraries in the Leipzig Art Association and chairman of the Leipzig Libraries Evening. He has loaned works from his collection to exhibitions and has collected works by Max Klinger and Max Liebermann in particular. Um, Kirstein immediately lost all his social offices after 1933, and his co-owner, a descendant of Seemann, immediately separated from him on July 1, 1933. um and uh, he essentially took over the publishing house. Um, Gustav Kirstein died in 1944, presumably from a heart condition.

[01:01:09]The publishing house was then continued by his wife, Kläre. It was still operating until 1938, then it was confiscated [snorting] and around 1941, they got a small remaining publishing house that they were allowed to continue running. And this remaining publishing house, which was called Meister der Farbe (Master of Color), was then confiscated in 1938, so that the Kirchstein family no longer had any shares. And, um, this master of color then returned to the large Seemann publishing house in 1941. So it was a kind of, um, yes, a circular movement, that the entire publishing house was then, so to speak, Aryanized.

[01:01:50]Um, the children of Kläre and Gustav Kirstein were able to run away and emigrate. Klare Kirchstein actually took her own life in 1939 to avoid imminent deportation to a concentration camp.

[01:02:05]Previously, she had repeatedly tried to offer her extensive art collection to the museum for sale in order to raise funds to pay for her escape.

[01:02:17][snorting] Um, but the museum always refused.

[01:02:21]Um, after the death of Claire Kierstein, the museum director Vian Tupser was again commissioned by the foreign exchange office to, um, as an expert to examine the estate. And from this collection, over 100 works came to the MDBK, mostly prints by Max Klinger. Other works, such as the Galatea by Max Klinger, which is a very special silver sculpture, were then sold on the art market.

[01:02:54]Um, the MDPK has, um, restituted the works in the meantime.

[01:03:00]Um, in our research project we have compiled over 400 works from the Kirchstein collection. So, it's one of the best researched and best known by now. Um, and one very specific, very important source, is a directory from 1917, which I would also like to show.

[01:03:24]So, that's something we work with. This is a directory that Gustav Kirstein compiled from his collection in 1917. And um, these are predominantly the drawings and um paintings. Unfortunately, we only have a copy, but it's no different than if it were the original.

[01:03:51]And then you see a great deal of graphic design from Klingergrafik, and the same thing comes again from Liebermann. All this is just a graphic.

[01:04:04]So he collected a very comprehensive collection of graphics and gathered different motifs in various states, including discarded motifs, then modified motifs, i.e., when the artist went back to the record and added or removed a shadow.

[01:04:24]Kirstein also collected these different states and proof prints, always wanting to have a completely complete picture of a motif.

[01:04:34]I need to hurry a bit. Um, Max Kling, uh, Kirstein had a very close relationship with some artists.

[01:04:45]As a publisher, he also often worked closely with them, and so a very nice letter to Louis Korinth has been preserved, in which he also describes his collection. And I'll read him a short quote from it. Um, he's actually telling Lobis Korinth about the rearrangement and redesign of his living room, writing: "Meanwhile, my living room has been decorated with all the colors of the Korinth palette. The moon rises over Lake Wechensee, and half a dozen watercolors provide the music all around." That was a lot of moving things around.

[01:05:22]The room was recently wallpapered and some older gods had to leave the premises. Now they hang between a very vibrant sketch by Liebermann and an Ehigenie by Feuerbach, which makes a truly astonishing face for it. So it's a very nice description of how people handle their collections, and it simply demonstrates what an intimate character this art ownership has for these families.

[01:05:52][snorting] Um, Kremer is uh our most important uh Jewish person, you could say, uh, in the MDBK, and we actually know the least about him. Um, he was born in what was then Gleiwitz in 1859 and died in Lucerne in 1926. He probably went to Presslau with his parents in the 1870s and likely came to Leipzig in 1914, where he was director of the Dresnerbank.

[01:06:26]He himself [snorting] um, only had one illegitimate daughter, who presumably lived in Presslau the whole time, about whom we know even less. And he had a sister who lived in Magdeburg, and from her he had two nieces and a nephew. Um, in 1925 he went to Lucerne, where he died in 1926.

[01:06:51]He assembled his extensive art collection very closely with the MDBK and especially with Hilde Gartheine, who was the custodian at our museum.

[01:07:03]And I'll read it to you. Um, so the letter up there on the right, I don't know if you can read it, um, is first of all a thank-you letter for a foundation, a financial foundation, that he has established. And then the umm director at the time, Richard Kraueel, who had been managing the collection on an interim basis and had also managed the Krassiuseum, writes further. Um, I hear that you were referred by Miss Dr. Heine acquired the bronze statue of a dancing girl by Matthieu Molitor. I am pleased that this beautiful work will remain here in Leipzig and has passed into your possession, and I hope that you will enjoy it for a long time. So, it 's totally normal for private collectors to work very closely with museum staff to build their collection. Here you can see the work I mean. uh, it then passed to us, and uh, also the uh, painting by Jakob Philip Hackert, and on the back of the painting is a note from Moritz Kremer, which says: "This picture will pass into the possession of the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig after my death and is therefore to be delivered to the museum immediately after my passing." So, he decided very early on that we would receive his entire art collection.

[01:08:37]After his death, there are 26 many lists that detail the art collection, also arranged by room. This is a really great document because it shows us how the art collection was presented in his home, and he also donated to the Kassi Museum of Applied Arts. And what's special here is that all of his artworks have been preserved in our country.

[01:09:05]Um, another art collector was the art historian Kalilienfeld, who primarily collected classical modern art and was initially based in Leipzig and later in Dresden.

[01:09:21]Um, he was curator at the Leipzig Art Association and was responsible for the exhibitions until he went to America in 1925 and set up a branch of the von Demen Gallery there. What is special about Kalilienfeld and the particularly close connection to the museum is that he provided us with 30 works as a teaching aid from 1924 to 1932. um, classical modernism. So, he mainly collected works by Max Pechstein, Karchmid Rottlof, Erich Heckel, and we as a museum were suddenly able to present a very significant collection of classical modern art to the public with these 30 works.

[01:10:09]However, he withdrew this loan in 1932 and took all his works with him to America, because he moved to America permanently in 1932.

[01:10:21]Another very special art collection is that of Hedwig and Eugen Platzki with their children Erner.

[01:10:31]You can see Erner on the left with her son. Um, I've unfortunately just forgotten what his name was. Um, her brother was named Bernhard and her sister was named Elisabeth. The son, I recall, was named Wilhelm. Exactly. Um, and uh, the Plattkes were owners of a smoke detector company, so um, which traded in furs, and were very special art collectors, um, because they collected um works from the um, uh, 18th and 17th centuries from Italy, and this art collection was so special that there were contemporary items. Art magazines are also a very important source.

[01:11:26]And here, Hermann Foss, who was also a curator at the MDBK, reported on the Platzki collection in Leipzig and said that 50 works were from the collection of January 17th. Hunders from Italy was part of the art collection, high-quality works, and such collections were only really seen in Munich and Vienna at that time. This is a very important source, because there are so many illustrations in the essay, and we can therefore identify the works much better.

[01:12:05]In fact, the collection is largely lost. So, the descendants are still searching for the works themselves, and we too have not been able to identify these works very well so far.

[01:12:23]So, the last collection I'd like to present to you is that of the Sonntag family.

[01:12:31]Um, Laura and Karl Sonntag, uh, and their children Eva, Marianne, and Karl.

[01:12:38]Um, Karl Sonntag was a bookbinder, an important book artist, who died in 1930, and his wife Lauer originally came from Chicago, came to Germany with her family, met Karl Sonntag here, and together they built up the art collection.

[01:12:59]Um [snorting] and uh, Laura Sonntag continued this art collection after the death of her husband and, um, exactly, um, continued to live in Leipzig.

[01:13:10]Um, Laura Sonntag was Jewish, and so were her children and they were persecuted during the Nazi era. Um, Laura Sonntag also had American citizenship, which means that the persecution measures were different at the beginning of the Nazi era than for Jews who only had German citizenship. Um, and she wanted to emigrate. Her children had already emigrated. Um, but the German authorities only agreed, um, when she emigrated in 1940, if she acknowledged that she would be treated as a German citizen. Um, and that's what the Nazi authorities did, uh, in order to confiscate all the property. And she was indeed not allowed to take anything with her, and all her art possessions and all her household furnishings were confiscated and auctioned off through the Hans Klemm auction house.

[01:14:11]Um, and the museum knew this, and there are letters where, uh, the museum staff submit applications in advance of the auction to acquire works from the collection.

[01:14:29]And it was primarily about the sculpture by Hermann Haller, which you see here, also the Annunciation by Jacob of Utrecht, but also other works that we did not acquire from the auction; we also purchased works from the auction, but which we had already acquired before the auction.

[01:14:52]And from family possessions we now also have photos from the house in Großdäuben, where you can see the works. And if you recall, this is, um, Hermann Haller. I can show that again. Exactly. That's how we identify works of art.

[01:15:11]Um, and here sits a sculpture by Kolbe, depicting Stefanie Nebehi, the niece of Laura Sonntag, who is now in the museum in Waldheim. Exactly. Um, the Sonntag family is also involved, so here you see the letter I meant from 1941, where it is written that it was reported that there was a particularly valuable painting from the early 16th century at Klemm's auction. And, um, here the museum is claiming that it should not be auctioned off, but rather purchased directly by the museum. Exactly. There was a major restitution case in 1994 concerning the Sonntag family, and we returned the works in 1994. The city library and the city history museum also made purchases at the auction. However, the objects in the city history museum and the city library were only discovered later, so they were settled separately from our restitution proceedings in 1994 with the descendants, and the descendants later decided that these works should remain here and tell the story of the family. That 's why the city library and the SGM still have works from the Sonntag family, and we returned ours in 1994.

[01:16:57][snorting] Exactly. Um, the eight families I've just introduced to you are just a small selection of the 21 families we've started researching. The research is obviously not yet finished, as you can imagine. Um, and with some families, such as the Pfsner couple, or also Plaut or Finkelstein, we are no longer sure whether they had extensive art collections.

[01:17:33]Um, they do appear in connection with Nazi cultural property confiscation, or in connection with the sources I've shown you, we sometimes see these names, but presumably they simply had a certain art collection to furnish their, um, apartments and houses.

[01:17:53][snorting] Um, the research project shows that even at the beginning of the 20th century there was a very rich collecting culture in Leipzig, which, uh, stands in a certain tradition.

[01:18:05]I hope that became clear when I tried to outline these traditions at the beginning. And then this tradition was broken off. Um, firstly, there was the situation with the Jewish collectors during the Nazi era, where many collections were destroyed, and then subsequently during the GDR, where this collecting culture could not be practiced as much and where there were many confiscations of cultural assets; private collectors were also expropriated during the GDR.

[01:18:42]Um, the limited research that existed on Jewish families after 1945 further complicates research today. So, there is essentially a gap. Um, and in the GDR, research into Jewish history and Jewish families only really began in the 1980s, around the end of the 1980s. And this gap, um, of course makes research on the families more difficult today, but it can also be seen that there is still a lot of material on the families, which is very heterogeneous and simply very scattered, but um, simply has to be gathered together. Um, and that, as you saw with Kirchstein, for example, or with the Heine family, one can actually draw a fairly comprehensive picture of the art collection and also show the intimacy of the art, what it meant for the families. Exactly. Thank you very much.

[01:19:50][snorting] Feel free to ask more questions if you like.

[01:20:06]Yes, it was.

[01:20:19]No, exactly. There is an art institution in the southern suburbs, but they definitely don't have any. Whether it was a cousin, I don't want to rule that out, but it wasn't a son or parents. Um, I 've thought about it too, yes, but um, the Presslauer family weren't active in the cultural sector at all. They had a bank, a private bank, um, exactly, I don't know, so there definitely wasn't a direct, very close nuclear family connection.

[01:20:59]I don't know about that, I haven't really looked into it. It would also be a good project to explore all the art production sites, um, well, not publishers, there's already quite a lot of research on publishers, but there were other art production sites like these, um, what actually happened to them, that hasn't really been researched yet.

[01:21:28]Yes, exactly.

[01:21:35]NK soussagen Kunstwerk.

[01:21:45]Well, it varies a lot. It depends on when the restitution took place. So after 1990, the ELG law was passed, and with it there was a legal basis for restitution, including for confiscations resulting from Nazi persecution. Um, you had to register it by '94 or '95. Of course, only families who already knew they had things with us could do that. Many people do n't know this, but some families did. For example, the Sonntag family has been trying to get their belongings back since the 1950s, and of course they immediately registered the claim, and the MDBK did n't have that much to do with it. In other words, there were offices for open property issues. This was a legal process, so to speak, and the museum and its staff had to cooperate, but on a very clear legal basis. Um, the restitutions that took place after 2000 based on the Washington Principles, the Washington Principles state that we restitute, or rather, that we find a fair and just solution. And this fair and just solution will be decided by the descendants, based on how it feels fair and just to them. And that actually varies a lot. Um, there are families who believe the artwork should remain in its place and the story should be told. They also offer the option of a buyback, or they may want restitution, and that depends somewhat on the circumstances. What are the families like, how big are the families now? How are the family members and their descendants interconnected?

[01:23:37]Um, can you even keep the art collection, or does it have to be converted into money to provide for all descendants equally? Um, how did the restitution process go? So how did the museum proactively approach the family, or were there any difficulties? So it's very individual and dependent. From the Kirstein collection, for example, we actually reacquired quite a few graphics. Um, but the money has to be there first, and um, yes, so it's very individual. [snorting] I have another question from the chat. Yes.

[01:24:24]Um, for what reasons is Moritz Krämer, who is an important art collector for the MDBK, under-researched?

[01:24:33]Yes, that's a good question. Um, I don't really know why we know so little about him. I think it's because he wasn't born in Leipzig and we found very little in the archives where we searched, and he has no direct descendants. So, um, the family from Magdeburg, they were all murdered in the Holocaust. So, there are no descendants from his sister's side.

[01:25:02]And um, I haven't been able to identify his illegitimate daughter yet, but he didn't live with her anyway. So, um, it's incredibly difficult to find anything about him in the archives. And then it's actually the case that, um, he then, well, the extermination of Jewish history under National Socialism, um, was simply no longer the focus. So, um, the annihilation of Jewish life in MS has simply led to us knowing much less about these families than about families who didn't have to leave Germany, who, um, have a continuity of having lived here in the city. And then at 25 he also went to Lucerne and possibly, well, I started looking in Switzerland, but they have a completely different registration system. So, it 's precisely because of the many moves that it's made more difficult, but also because he was Jewish and the memory of him was simply erased.

[01:26:10]But we're working on that now.

[01:26:13]Thank you very much. I then have another question from the chat. Um, could you tell us more about the methodology of your research project? For example, how did you find the exhibition catalogue on the old masters in the Netherlands? Well, that was a coincidence. Actually, um, we received an inquiry from another provenance researcher who is researching a work in France, and um, this RKD, the research institute in the Netherlands, has an online database, and there she found the work, and it said the owner was half-family. And she researched this work, and then it's quite normal that when she found out that halberstamm was a Leipzig family, she would contact me as a local provenance researcher to ask if I had ever done anything on halberstamm. And um, I was initially wondering how it knew that RKD was the work of Halberstamm. Well, that was n't clear from the online information, from the database. And then we actually inquired there, and then they sent us a page from the exhibition catalog from your library, and then we simply had all the exhibition catalogs you have with the annals scanned. So, these are just random findings. Well, you can of course do it in a very systematic way.

[01:27:44]One can systematically visit these large research institutes and see which catalogs are there and whether they contain annotations. That could also be done in the next installment. Um, exactly. But that was more of a coincidence, a very happy coincidence.

[01:28:03]Thank you. Are there any further questions from the audience? I have two more.

[01:28:11]Um, I'd be interested to know, you tell the story, so we have on the one hand the exhibition and on the other hand the collection. Um, do you make the history of Jewish works, or the history of works from Jewish collections, visible in the exhibition? Exactly. So, in the permanent exhibition, there is currently no sign on the object.

[01:28:34]Um, for example, we also have a foundation from the Heilperen family in our museum, which is part of the permanent exhibition, or from Kremer, there are also works on display, and it doesn't say anything about the fact that the donor was Jewish, but we have now developed a guide, a small guide sheet, where we have listed all the works that have a connection to Jewish life in Leipzig.

[01:29:04]And, um, they tell stories about the families the works are associated with, and anyone who wants to can take a free copy and walk through the museum and read the story of the works. And in September we will have a big exhibition on the Jewish art collections, and we will present 11 families there, so eight that I have shown and a few more. Um, this is a special exhibition and we want to document it online accordingly.

[01:29:40]Um, and that will of course be a major topic. Um, how the provenances are now made even more visible in the museum in detail.

[01:29:49]I've been thinking about this for quite some time now and haven't come to any conclusion yet. But I will do that. So, with my position, there is definitely the capacity to address this more extensively beyond this leadership booklet.

[01:30:10]And perhaps a possibility that has indeed increased dynamically in recent years. Use AI. So, what I understand is that it involves a lot of detective work, evaluating many documents from a wide variety of sources. There are many digital copies available now. Can you use that already?

[01:30:33]Personally, it's not really my thing. I think it could be used better. Um, I use a lot of databases. So, what is really helpful is when archives and libraries that scan archival materials, put them online, and process them with word and text recognition software. Of course, I already use that, and it makes my work much easier. So, um, even if the documents aren't online, but for example inventory lists are online and names are listed, I can still contact them from, let's say, my home desk or office and have things scanned for me. Uh, a few 20 years ago I would have had to travel everywhere, and this of course makes everything much, much faster and much more accessible.

[01:31:24]What I still don't have much confidence in is really word recognition software and archival materials. Well, this is just extremely prone to errors, and uh, my eye recognizes family names much, much better than any AI could. That will probably change at some point. That would be nice, because then I wouldn't have to scan so many lists with my eyes, and it's also tiring. Um, but it's not yet mature enough for it to work well, and even image recognition software doesn't help us much because we don't have any images of many works. So it would be good if all the catalogues raisonnés of artists were online and digitized. So that helps us, so that helps us much, much more, so if the sources are digitally accessible, that's a huge help. Exactly.

[01:32:25]Thank you.

[01:32:27]Any further questions?

[01:32:31]Then we close almost on time. Uh, [laughter] thank you, Dr. Sas, it was lovely to have you here. Thank you for the interesting insights.

[01:32:39][snorting] The advertising blog, we were at the fine arts. Next week, music will be the focus again at the end of our lecture series on Jewish life in Saxony and beyond.