A database of c 43,500 paintings and c 13,000 persons and institutions associated with their acquisition or sale by the Munich art dealer Galerie Heinemann (1872-1939), with a focus on the period from 1890 to 1939 when the firm was aryanised. See below for the full history of the dealership, the works of art traded and the sources of information in the database.
Galerie Heinemann online: http://heinemann.gnm.de
Press Release 29 July 2010 (for the German version, click here)
New online archive comprises over 43,000 artworks
The database Galerie Heinemann online makes the extensive documentation of the famous
In the Deutsches Kunstarchiv in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum,
To facilitate the complex searches, a project was launched in 2009 in which the business records and card indexes of the Galerie Heinemann in the Deutsches Kunstarchiv were processed. They were supplemented by catalogs and photographs that are found in the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in
These documents include the gallery's business records (6,860 pages) as well as the complex card catalog system subdivided into eight categories (35,300 index cards). The index cards and business records contain detailed information and allow a precise identification of artworks, artists, sales dates as well as persons or institutions associated with the acquisition or sales. The catalogs and photographs stored in the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in
2: The History of the Galerie Heinemann
Founding and Importance
The Galerie Heinemann was founded in
The heyday of the gallery – 1890 to 1939
In 1890 the three sons of the art dealer David Heinemann took over the gallery. Theobald and Hermann headed the
Under the direction of Friedrich Heinrich Zinckgraf as of 1939
In September 1938 Friedrich Heinrich Zinckgraf (1878-1954), a senior employee of the gallery, took over Fritz Heinemann's share in the gallery. After the pogrom on November 9/10, 1938, Franziska Heinemann's share was also "aryanized" by Zinckgraf. The Aryanization negotiations, however, took a good year at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in
He became the sole owner of the gallery with all its documents by the end of 1939. The business was valued at 220,000 Reichsmark, the stock at 200,000 Reichsmark. Zinckgraf changed the name of the Galerie Heinemann to Galerie Zinckgraf in May 1941 and continued to manage it in unmodified form even after the war (his licence was renewed in September 1946). He even retained the numbering system of the Galerie Heinemann.
What happened to the gallery documents after the end of the war?
In June 1946 Fritz Heinemann returned to
In 1972 he turned the business records and card indexes over to the Deutsches Kunstarchiv in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in
3: The spectrum of the Galerie Heinemann
Date of origin of the traded artworks
90 percent of the Galerie Heinemann's trade involved 19th and 20th artworks. 10 percent of the traded artworks were created between the 13th and the 18th centuries. The orientation of the gallery is even more obvious, if you consider only the over 35,000 directly traded artworks or those taken on consignment. Only 3.3 percent of these artworks were created before the 19th century.
The focus on the 19th and 20th century also becomes clear from the approximately 5,000 offers the gallery received. 13th to 18th century works accounted for 40 % of these offers, including a strikingly large number of Baroque artworks, for instance, by Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn, El Greco, or Renaissance painters such as Titian and Lucas Cranach. Yet precisely these works were not accepted by the gallery. Contemporary 19th and 20th century art remained the specialty of the Galerie Heinemann.
The important artists in the gallery
Works by artists from the German-speaking areas (
A great number of the artworks came from representatives of the so-called
Foreign artists whose paintings were traded by the gallery included the French artists François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet, the Spanish artists Francisco de Goya and Diego Velázquez, as well as the English artists John Constable, George Romney and William Turner.
4: Source Material Explanations
The information collated in the database Galerie Heinemann online comes from various sources.
Alongside stock ledgers, purchase books and cashbooks the major holdings of the gallery also include the card catalog, consisting of eight separate card indexes.
The important identification characteristic for all artworks is the number assigned by the gallery, by which the various groups of sources can be uniquely correlated. Traded artworks have a so-called Heinemann number (short key: H-Nr.); works taken on consignment have a so-called consignment number (short key: C-Nr.). The works purchased by the gallery were labeled on the back with their respective Heinemann number.
Basically three types of artworks can be distinguished:
1. Type Heinemann Artwork: Traded artworks (17,582 artwork data records).
2. Type Commission Return: Goods on consignment that were not sold and were given back later (19,471 artwork data records).
3. Type Offer: Artworks offered, but not accepted and not traded (6,073 artwork data records).
Additional information sources are the catalogs of the Galerie Heinemann. They reflect its sales and exhibition concept and contain occasional images of the artworks. Further pictorial material is found in the few remaining photographs.
For a detailed explanation of the individual sources, see "Documents":
5: About us
Cooperation Partners
Project Leader
Dr. Birgit Jooss, Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum,
Cooperation Partners
Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte,
Advisors
Dr. Christian Fuhrmeister, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte
Dr. Siegfried Krause, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
Digitalization
Digitalization of the Documents of the Deutsches Kunstarchiv
Dr. Harald Fischer, Harald Fischer Verlag,
Digitalization of the Documents of the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, Munich
Ulf Dingerdissen M.A., Dr. des. Johannes Griebel, Lena Hodel M.A., Lisa Kolb M.A., Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte,
Work Area Database
Conceptional Assistance and Project Leader for Database Entry
Frank Drauschke, Beate Schreiber, Facts & Files, Historisches Forschungsinstitut Berlin
Development of the Work Area Database
Frank Drauschke, Christoph Herrmann, Facts & Files, Historisches Forschungsinstitut Berlin
Transcription and Database Entry
Ruth Bergmann, Jens Ole Beckers, Dr. Max Bloch, Hans-Christian Bresgott, Stefanie Ernst, Kathrin Felder, Susanne Gruschka, Dr. Jens Wietschorke, Facts & Files, Historisches Forschungsinstitut Berlin
Web Database
Graphic Design and Technical Implementation of the Internet Database
Olaf Baldini, pitoresk,
Translation into English
Karen Christenson, Frank Gillard
Financing
Core Funding
Germanisches Nationalmuseum,
Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte,
Third-Party Funding
Arbeitsstelle für Provenienzrecherche/ -forschung,
Duration of Project
June 2009 to June 2010
Contact: Dr. Birgit Jooss, Deutsches Kunstarchiv im Germanischen Nationalmuseum,
Tel: 0049 – (0)911 – 13 31 178, b.jooss@gnm.de