Provenance Research:

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Museum
Sprengel Museum, Hanover

Research into Nazi-confiscated works of art in the museum's collection
In 2000 the Sprengel Museum returned the painting Walchensee, Johannisnacht (1920) by Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) to the heirs of Dr. Gustav Kirstein.

The Leipzig publisher and collector Dr. Gustav Kirstein had purchased the work at the 1920 Berlin Secession. Kirstein committed suicide in 1934. Soon afterwards his firm was taken over by the Nazis. The family's art collection was handed over to the Leipzig art gallery C.G. Boerner and forty-four works were placed with the storage firm Erhardt Schneider. The proceeds of the sale went to a blocked account. Kirstein's daughters had already emigrated to the USA. In 1949 the Hanover collector Dr. Bernhard Sprengel purchased the Corinth from Lothar-Günter Buchheim in Berlin. In 1979 Sprengel donated his collection to the city of Hannover and the Sprengel Museum was founded as a result.

After inquiries instituted in 1999 by the Commission for Art Recovery, the museum restituted the painting to the family.

Contact
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Krempel
Sprengel Museum
Kurt-Schwitters Platz
30169 Hannover
Tel: +49 (0) 511 168 43875
Fax: +49 (0) 511 168 45093
Email: Sprengel-Museum@Hannover-Stadt.de
www.sprengel-museum.de/v1/englisch/smhframes.html in German and English

Source
Ulrich Krempel, 'Lovis Corinths Gemälde "Walchensee, Johannisnacht" von 1920". in Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste (ed.), Beiträge öffentlicher Einrichtungen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland zum Umgang mit Kulturgütern aus ehemaligem jüdischen Besitz (Magdeburg: Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste, 2001), 144-149.Text in German, summary in English

Sprengel Museum, Hanover
<www.sprengel-museum.de/v1/englisch/smhframes.html>, first accessed 12 December 2002.  Link updated 20 July 2007.

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