SPK restitutes five works from the Ueberall Collection
Press release from 05/20/2019
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has restituted five works from the collections of the National Museums in Berlin to the heirs of the art dealer Heinrich Ueberall. The works had come to the museums in the course of a purchase by the Dresdner Bank in 1935. Heinrich Ueberall died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1939.
Matteus Stom (1600 - after 1641) was restituted from the collection of the Gemäldegalerie: Biblical depiction / Sarah leading Abraham to Hagar (1642-1650), Bartholomeus van der Helst (copy): Portrait of a Gentleman / Portrait of a Man (17th century), and Frans Ykens: Still Life (17th century). Two bronzes by unknown artists were restituted from the Alte Nationalgalerie, each of which is a smaller copy of a known work: after Allegrain: Venus after the Bath (c. 1845/1864), and after Canova: Venus (c. 1845/64).
The works were part of a collection of over 4,000 artworks that the State of Prussia purchased from the Dresdner Bank in 1935 and transferred to the National Museums in Berlin shortly afterwards. Since the beginning of 2018, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has been researching this collection, which can be attributed to a wide variety of previous owners, as part of its own provenance research project. At around the same time, Dr Irena Strelow, the representative of Heinrich Ueberall's heirs, approached the Foundation with a restitution request. The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin had received ten works or groups of works from his collection as part of the transaction in 1935, some of which were sold on soon afterwards, while others were lost due to the war or have disappeared.
Most of the works being researched in the Dresdner Bank project were held by the bank as collateral for loans. However, the individual loan transactions were very different in their structure. Years ago, the SPK suspected that this complex of works might contain works seized as a result of persecution and began to successively examine the holdings of certain sub-transactions. A dissertation initiated and supported by the SPK provided the historical and economic context of the banking business in November 2017. It now serves as the basis for researching the individual cases in the SPK's own project and has also led to a number of restitution enquiries to the Foundation.
Hermann Parzinger, President of the SPK: "I am pleased that with the restitution of the works to the heirs of Heinrich Ueberall, we have been able to take a small step towards making amends for the injustice that has been done. We realised early on that the Dresdner Bank holdings were highly suspicious and therefore treated them as a priority. The fact that research is still ongoing shows how complex these cases from the early years of the Nazi era are. We are conducting thorough investigations into individual cases to clarify whether there was a persecution-related seizure. If so, we try to find a just and fair solution as quickly as possible."
As with all its restitution cases, the SPK bases its assessment of the complex facts surrounding the individual loan transactions on the Washington Principles of 1998 and the Joint Declaration of the Federal Government, the federal states and the municipalities. In the case of Heinrich Ueberall, there was nothing to suggest that circumstances other than his persecution by the Nazi regime led to the bank realising the loan collateral.
Heinrich Ueberall (20 December 1869, Yaroslavl, Galicia - 27 September 1939, Sachsenhausen concentration camp) had moved to Berlin with his wife Rebekka and their two children in 1899. He ran a flourishing art and antiques business, whose customers included the Federal Foreign Office until 1933. Due to increasing reprisals, Ueberall had to give up the business between 1936 and 1938. He successfully applied for a British entry visa for himself and his wife in 1939. However, the outbreak of war made it impossible for them to leave the country. Heinrich Ueberall was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in September 1939, where he died the same month. His widow took her own life in 1942 after receiving a deportation order. At the time of her death, Rebekka Ueberall was living completely destitute in a so-called Jewish flat. The bailiff posthumously established that she had no assets whatsoever.
The daughter had already fled with her family in 1938 and emigrated to the USA in 1940, while the son fled to London in 1939. Two of Heinrich and Rebekka Ueberall's grandchildren survived the Holocaust, one of whom may live to see the restitution. On behalf of the heirs, Irena Strelow expressly thanked the SPK for the restitution: "With the restitution, the Foundation is showing that it is dealing responsibly with its past and critically recognising its own role as a profiteer of the persecution of the Jews. The SPK is thus doing one of the few living victims of the Holocaust a small measure of justice."