An Italian Madonna portrait that had been missing since the end of the war returned to the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin yesterday
Press release from 02/09/2012
The Renaissance painting "Mary with the Child" was consigned to Sotheby's New York for appraisal and identified by the auction house as an old collection of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie. The owner, the American Bryan Horney, immediately agreed to return the painting to the Gemäldegalerie. He himself had inherited it from his father, who had been stationed in Berlin as an officer in the US Army after the end of the war and had presumably bought the painting there in 1946. He and members of his family recently presented the Madonna portrait to the Vice President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Günther Schauerte, at the Goethe-Institut in Washington. Schauerte said: "We thank Mr Bryan Horney for his willingness to return the painting to the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, as well as Sotheby's for their attentive research into the provenance of the painting; both mark a responsible handling of cultural assets." The painting has just returned to Berlin.
The 42 x 31 centimetre painting depicts Mary with the Christ Child as a half-length figure in front of a landscape. It was previously attributed to the Lombard painter Giovanni Boltraffio (1467-1516), but more recent expertise suggests that the work is by an anonymous Lombard artist.
At the beginning of the war in 1939, the buildings on Museum Island were closed and the evacuation of the paintings began in December 1940. The frequent air raids on Berlin prompted the management of the collection to use the control tower of the anti-aircraft bunker in Friedrichshain as a salvage centre. Works of art from the National Museums were stored here from September 1941, including the painting that had just been returned. By September 1942, the storage was essentially complete. In March 1945, the artworks were once again relocated to salt mines in Thuringia. However, the transports were stopped again on 7 April. According to the latest information, 434 paintings remained in the control tower of the anti-aircraft bunker in Berlin Friedrichshain. On 2 May 1945, the bunker (gun and control tower) was handed over to the Red Army without a fight. Major fires in the control tower followed on 5/6 May and between 14 and 18 May. Since then, the 434 paintings in the Berlin gallery have disappeared without a trace. They are listed in the catalogue "Dokumentation der Verluste, Band 1, Gemäldegalerie" in the list of "Vermutlich im Mai 1945 im Leitturm des Flakbunkers im Berliner Friedrichshain vernichtet Werke". This publication made it possible to identify the painting "Madonna and Child" from Sotheby's.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, emphasised: "The painting that has now been returned is the only work from the Gemäldegalerie's collection remaining in Berlin in 1945 that has been found again. Until now, the Gemäldegalerie's holdings stored in the Friedrichshain anti-aircraft bunker were all thought to have been destroyed by the fire in the bunker's control tower in May 1945. It is to be hoped that this case will provide further information on the whereabouts of the Gemäldegalerie's works relocated to the anti-aircraft bunker."