AAMD Launches (Partial) Registry of Nazi-Era Claims Resolutions

It doesn't list all such objects, however. What's surprising is that there are only 17 works from 12 institutions currrently listed. Where's the much publicized recent resolution (details undisclosed) of the dispute over two Picasso masterpieces: "Boy Leading a Horse" (Museum of Modern Art) and "Le Moulin de la Galette" (Guggenheim Museum)? And what about the famous case of the Art Institute of Chicago's Degas pastel, "''Landscape with Smokestacks''? ArtsJournal blogger Judith Dobrzynski reported on that settlement for the NY Times in August 1998, and I reported some months later about the complications that arose in implementing the settlement, in my Jan. 14, 1999 Wall Street Journal article, "Nazi Loot Claims: Art With a History (to which I can find no free link).

Presumably, museums' participation in AAMD's new registry (as distinguished from its year-old Registry of New Acquisition of Archaeological Material and Works of Ancient Art) is voluntary. AAMD's guidelines state that its members MUST post new antiquities acquisitions with incomplete post-1970 provenances on its registry.

But when it comes to resolved disputes with Nazi-victims' heirs, some museums may prefer to put that unpleasantness behind them, rather bringing these matters, once again, into the public eye. And some institutions probably just haven't gotten around to posting their information yet.

The new registry is intended to supplement the American Association of Museums' Nazi-Era Provenance Internet Portal, a searchable database of information that can be accessed by potential claimants. NEPIP currently lists more than 28,000 objects (from 166 participating museums) that "changed hands in Continental Europe during the Nazi era (1933-1945)."