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Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, commented: "It is impressive and gratifying that after decades we have succeeded in returning these works, which are so important to the collection, to the Nationalgalerie. I would like to thank everyone involved, especially the previous owners who were willing to return the works and the representatives of the art trade, who carried out provenance research in an exemplary manner."

The four paintings belong to the holdings of the National Museums in Berlin, which were removed from storage during the Second World War to protect them and have since been considered losses. Numerous of these works were destroyed, many were confiscated by the Russian trophy commissions and a number are still missing today, without the nature of the loss being able to be determined more precisely. Due to the division of the collections into East and West, it was not possible for the Berlin museums to systematically record and document this for decades, not least because neither side had the complete inventories. In 1995, the first volume of the "Documentation of Losses" series was finally published, analysing the Gemäldegalerie's collection. Since then, five further volumes (National Gallery, Museum of Indian Art, Museum of Prehistory and Early History, Collection of Classical Antiquities, Sculpture Collection) have been published, which in some cases have already helped to identify works that have turned up on the art market.

The four paintings now returned had already been published in the publication "Verlorene Werke der Malerei" (the standard work from 1965 until reunification), as well as in the Nationalgalerie's catalogue of losses published in 2001 and in the Lost Art Database of the Koordinierungsstelle für Kulturgutverluste in Magdeburg. Indications that the paintings might have turned up came from the art trade and the Art Loss Register. The Foundation then made every effort to recover the works, as in comparable cases.

Similarly pleasing in recent years have been the recovery of two Menzel gouaches from the Kupferstichkabinett, a painting by Julius Hübner from the Alte Nationalgalerie, a Florentine Mannerist portrait of a lady from the Gemäldegalerie and a group of figures by Balthasar Permoser from the Kunstgewerbemuseum.

Further information on museum losses:

The publications documenting the losses of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin can be ordered in the online shop.

Lehmann, Klaus-Dieter / Schauerte, Günther (eds.): Cultural Treasures - Relocated and Missing. An inventory of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation 60 years after the end of the war. Berlin 2004

In the labyrinth of law? Ways to protect cultural property. Publications of the Coordination Centre for the Loss of Cultural Property Volume 5. Magdeburg 2007

Cultural property during the Second World War. Relocation - Discovery - Repatriation. Publications of the Coordination Centre for the Loss of Cultural Property Volume 4, edited by Uwe Hartmann. Magdeburg 2007

Lost Art Internet Database

On the paintings in detail:

Carl Blechen, "Way to Castel Gandolfo" (1830)

Oil on canvas, 47.5 x 42 cm, inv. no. A I 319/6, acquired in 1881.

Blechen's "Road to Castel Gandolfo" appeared on the Munich art market in 2007. As usual, the art dealer Arnoldi-Livie carried out provenance research on the painting on offer and informed the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation that it could be a work from the National Gallery. The authenticity check revealed that it was indeed part of the collection's old holdings. For reasons of protection, the work had been moved to the Berlin Zoologischer Garten anti-aircraft bunker during the Second World War and had been considered lost since 1945. Thanks to the seller's willingness to engage in dialogue, it has now been returned to the Alte Nationalgalerie. There it has been restored and now has its permanent place in the Blechen Hall.

There are still 13 works missing from the Nationalgalerie's Blechen collection, which comprised 47 paintings before the Second World War. Nevertheless, no other artist apart from Menzel is as comprehensively represented in the Nationalgalerie's collection as Carl Blechen. The Nationalgalerie organised the first ever major Blechen exhibition in 1881 and honoured the artist with a comprehensive retrospective in 1990 to mark the 150th anniversary of his death.

Blechen (Cottbus 1798-1840 Berlin) had studied painting at the Berlin Academy from 1822-24 and is categorised in art history between Romanticism and Realism. A study trip to Dresden and Saxon Switzerland, where he met Johann Christian Dahl and probably also Caspar David Friedrich, had a great influence on his artistic career. Initially employed as a decorative painter at the theatre, he turned to open-air painting after a trip to Italy in 1828/29 and held a professorship for landscape painting at the Berlin Academy from 1831. He painted a total of three versions of "Way to Castel Gandolfo", two of which were in the possession of the National Gallery. The work that has now been recovered is the higher quality version, which was purchased with the Frick Collection in 1881 and exhibited permanently. The second version from the Alte Nationalgalerie is still missing.

Virgilio Narcisse Díaz de la Peña, "Forest Interior (Fontainebleau)" (1874)

Oil on wood, 23 x 34 cm, acquired in 1897, inscribed: N. Diaz 74.

Also in 2007, the Art Loss Register London informed the National Gallery that a work presumably from the National Gallery's old collection was to be auctioned at Sotheby's in New York. "Waldinneres (Fontainebleau)" was housed in the Berlin Zoologischer Garten flak tower during the Second World War for protective reasons and had been considered lost due to the war since 1945. After the work was identified as belonging to the Nationalgalerie, the consignor decided not to sell it and made a return to Berlin possible.

As one of Hugo von Tschudi's first acquisitions, the small-format work is of great significance for the Nationalgalerie. Tschudi was director of the Nationalgalerie from 1896 to 1908, during which time he built up a collection of paintings by the Impressionists and their immediate predecessors. The Nationalgalerie was the first European museum to show works by these artists, although Kaiser Wilhelm II held different aesthetic views. To circumvent the conservative purchasing commission, Tschudi acquired the works with the help of donors. The National Gallery received "Waldinneres (Fontainebleau)" as a gift from the banker and art collector Alfred Thiem in 1897.

Narcisse Virgilio Díaz de la Peña (Bordeaux 1808 - 1876 Mentone) was one of the main masters of the Barbizon School, a group of Parisian painters who came together from around 1830 in the village of Barbizon on the edge of the Fontainebleau forest to study nature directly. They were less interested in the grandeur or sublimity of nature than in paysage intime, simple motifs such as forest corners, ponds, river bends and villages. They endeavoured to capture the sky and clouds, light and atmosphere realistically and are regarded as forerunners of the Impressionists. Díaz de la Peña was extremely successful with his paintings at the Paris "Salon" from the 1840s onwards. After taking part in the "First International Exhibition" in Munich in 1869 alongside Courbet and Corot, he also became a well-known painter in Germany.

Charles Hoguet, "Bridge over a River with Trees and Figures" (1853)

Oil on wood, 19 x 27 cm, acquired in 1916; inv. no. A III 839.

In January 2009, the Art Loss Register London drew the National Gallery's attention to the work offered by the New York auction house Christie's for the February auction. It had been listed as a war loss in publications and databases for decades. The painting, acquired by the Nationalgalerie in 1916, had been in the Berlin Friedrichshain flak tower during the Second World War and had been considered lost since the end of the war. After the work was identified as an old collection of the Nationalgalerie, an agreement was quickly reached with the consignor with the support of the auction house. The painting has recently been returned to the Alte Nationalgalerie, where the picture and frame have been restored.

Charles Hoguet (Berlin 1821-1870 Berlin), of Huguenot descent, grew up in the French colony in Berlin. After initial studies at the Berlin Academy, he went to Paris for further training at the age of 18. Under the influence of contemporary open-air painting, Hoguet developed a brilliant painterly style and a pronounced sense of colour and form. A few years after his return from Paris in 1848, he created the small-format painting "Bridge over a River". It shows a scene of two men by a river near a light-coloured stone bridge, reminiscent of Camille Corot's landscapes in its freshness of colour.

Friedrich Eduard Meyerheim, "Children at the Front Door" (1852)

Oil on canvas, 44.2 x 35.6 cm, acquired in 1880, inv. no. A I 297.

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation also became aware of the planned auction of the painting at the Zurich auction house Koller in 2007 through a tip from the Art Loss Register (Germany). After identifying the work as an old collection of the Nationalgalerie, the Foundation agreed with the consignor that it should return to the collection in Berlin.

The painting had been purchased for the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in 1880 from the "weiland von Jakobs'schen Sammlung", Potsdam. After being loaned to the Reichspostdirektion Berlin for a long time, it was moved to Schwedt / Oder Palace around 1941, which was destroyed in 1945. Until recently, it was assumed that the painting had also been destroyed. However, it had probably been unlawfully removed before the castle in Schwedt was destroyed.

Friedrich Eduard Meyerheim (Danzig 1808 - 1879 Berlin) was a popular genre painter during his lifetime. He lived in Berlin from 1830 and studied under Gottfried Schadow and Johann Gottfried Niedlich at the academy. Together with the architect Heinrich Strack, who built the Alte Nationalgalerie after Stüler's death in 1866-76, he travelled through the Mark, the result of which was the publication in 1833 of the plate work "Architektonische Denkmäler der Altmark Brandenburg". He then increasingly turned to genre painting with motifs from folk and children's life. "Children at the Front Door" is an example of this, comparable to Ferdinand Waldmüller's children's scenes. The Nationalgalerie also owns two other children's motifs by Meyerheim ("Young Farmer's Wife with her Sick Child", "The First Step").