War loss resurfaces: Art library receives historical "snapshots" by photographer Ottomar Anschütz back
Press release from 02/04/2016
The Art Library of the National Museums in Berlin recently received ten historical photographs back. The vintage prints by photographer Ottomar Anschütz were previously considered a war loss. They have now turned up at auction. After the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation contacted the auction house, the seller, Dr Jens Mattow, immediately decided to return them. He had acquired the paintings in ignorance of their provenance. The boxes had been cut in such a way that the library stamps were no longer present. Nevertheless, the pictures could be clearly identified.
The photographs are ten snapshots of foxes from 1886, which the Berlin museums had acquired directly from Ottomar Anschütz in 1887 along with a larger group of 478 photographs, mainly of animals. They were intended to serve as study models for the decorative arts.
Ottomar Anschütz's animal photographs were considered unique in the 1880s: thanks to his outstanding photographic skills and the development of a new type of focal plane shutter, Anschütz was able to photograph animals in their natural movement, whether in the zoological garden in Wroclaw or in the wild.
As early as 2002, seven Anschütz photographs reappeared on the art market. They were also returned to the Art Library. However, a large part of the 1887 acquisition (approx. 400 sheets) is still considered a loss.
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